'ORIGAN  KJ-STGRY 

IN 
LITER  AT  URF 


L-M-BRIGGS 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


American  .Kjistorp  in  literature 


Noted  Speeches  of 
ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


American  ffiiatorp  in  literature 

NOTED   SPEECHES 

OF 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Including  the 

Lincoln- Douglas  Debate 

EDITED  WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES 

BY 

LILIAN  MARIE  BRIGGS 

Assistant  in  the  yew  York  Public  Library 


WITH   PORTRAITS 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1911 


Copyright,  1911,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


THE    QUINN   A    K>DEN    CO.    PRESS 
HAHWAY,    N.   J. 


CONTENTS 

PAGI 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH — LINCOLN  .  .  ix 
COOPER  INSTITUTE  SPEECH  .  .  .  .  i 
LINCOLN'S  FIRST  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  .  35 
LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  SPEECH  .  .  -51 
LINCOLN'S  SECOND  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  .  53 
PROCLAMATION  OF  EMANCIPATION  .  .57 
BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH — DOUGLAS  .  .61 
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  : 

Opening  Speech 63 

Lincoln's  Reply 82 


299183 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN      ...       .       .       Frontispiece 
STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS  .        .        Facing  page  62 


FOREWORD 

THIS  series,  American  History  in  Literature, 
will  include  only  the  best-known  American 
speeches, — those  which  commemorate  the  most 
important  events  in  the  history  of  our  country. 

The  biographical  sketches  have  been  included 
for  the  convenience  of  the  student  and  reader, 
and  for  the  schoolboys  and  girls,  who  are  con 
stantly  seeking  concise  accounts  of  the.  lives  of  our 
great  Americans. 

This  present  volume,  the  first  of  the  series,  gives 
to  the  student  and  reader  Abraham  Lincoln's  most 
noted  speeches  in  compact  form,  making  a  chrono 
logical  anthology. 

L.  M.  B. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 

V^v 

IN  a  little  log-cabin  in  Hardin  County,  Ken 
tucky,  pn  the  1 2th.  of  February,  1809,  was  born 
a  future  President  of  the  United  States,  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

When  Abraham  was  seven  years  old,  his  father, 
Thomas  Lincoln,  moved  with  his  family  to  In 
diana.  It  was  a  cold,  dreary  winter  for  them 
in  the  rude  shed  which  Abraham,  knowing  well 
how  to  handle  an  ax,  had  helped  his  father  to 
build.  The  following  autumn  found  them  in  a 
better  cabin,  but  brought  to  Abraham  the  loss  of 
his  mother,  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  leaving  his  sis 
ter  Sarah,  eleven  years  old,  to  care  for  the  house 
hold.  But  the  next  year  the  little  home  was  much 
changed;  for  a  stepmother  had  come,  a  woman  of 
energy  and  thrift,  who  provided  the  children  with 
comforts  before  unknown  to  them.  She  became 
very  fond  of  Abraham  and  encouraged  his  incli 
nation  for  reading  and  study.  One  year  would 
probably  cover  all  the  schooling  he  ever  had,  but 

ix 


x  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  set  to  work  with  a  will  to  educate  himself, 
sometimes  walking  miles  to  borrow  a  book. 

In  the  spring  of  1830  Thomas  Lincoln  sold  his 
farm  in  Indiana  and  moved  to  Illinois.  Abraham, 
though  wishing  to  do  something  for  himself,  re 
mained  with  his  father  about  a  year  longer,  to  see 
him  comfortably  settled  in  his  new  home.  Then, 
in  April,  he  went  on  his  second  expedition  to  New 
Orleans  in  a  flatboat.  On  his  return  his  employer 
placed  him  in  charge  of  a  store  at  New  Salem. 

When  he  was  twenty-three  years  old,  he  enlisted 
in  what  was  called  the  Black  Hawk  War,  and  was 
chosen  captain  of  his  company.  When  the  war 
was  at  an  end  and  he  returned  home,  he  was  told 
that  the  people  wished  to  send  him  to  the  legisla 
ture.  He  agreed  to  be  a  candidate,  but  was  not 
elected.  All  this  time  he  did  not  give  up  the  idea 
of  becoming  a  lawyer,  and  soon  after  the  next 
election,  at  which  he  received  a  large  majority,  he 
commenced  the  study  of  law. 

In  1837  he  left  New  Salem  and  removed  to 
Springfield,  which  was  ever  after  his  home.  He 
was  elected  to  the  Illinois  legislature  four  times  in 
succession  and  again  in_j_8_£6,  and  tho_following 
to  be  a  Representative  in  Con- 


At  the  close  of  his  two  years  in  Congress, 
Mr.  Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield  and  applied 
himself  to  the  practice  of  law.  But  very  soon  he 
was  again  taking  an  active  part  in  the  politics  of 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  xi 

his  State.  It  was  at  the  State  convention  held  in 
Bloomington  in  1856,  at  which  time  the  Republi 
can  party  of  Illinois  was  finally  organized,  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  the  wonderful  address  which 
has  become  famous  as  his  "  lost  speech." 

j^ighteen  fifty-eight  was  the  year  of  the  noted 
Lincoln-Douglas  t)ebate  that  brought  Mr.  Lincoln 
conspicuously  before  the  whole  country.  Two 
years  later,  when  visiting  New  York,  he  was  in 
vited  by  a  party  of  Republicans  to  deliver  a 
speech  at  Cooper  Union.  This  speech  helped  to 
increase  his  popularity.  This  same  year,  1860, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  to  be  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861, 
delivered  his  First  Inaugural  Address  in  the  pres 
ence  of  thousands  of  people.  The  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  which  gave  the  slaves  their  free 
dom,  was  issued  to  take  effect,  on  the  ist  of  Janu 
ary,  1863;  and  in  this  act  Mr.  Lincoln  made  his 
name  great.  It  was  in  this  same  year  that  he 
delivered  the  famous  Gettysburg  Address. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  to  the  Presidency  for 
the  second  term,  but  lived  only  a  few  weeks  after 
ward.  He  was  shot  in  a  theater  in  Washington 
on  Friday  evening,  the  I4th  of  April,  1865. 


"  He  grew  according  to  the  need, 
and  as  the  problem  grew, 
so  did  his  comprehension  of  it." 
RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


COOPER  INSTITUTE  SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE,  NEW  YORK, 
FEBRUARY  27,  i860 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS  OF 
NEW  YORK: — The  facts  with  which  I  shall  deal 
this  evening  are  mainly  old  and  familiar;  nor  is 
there  anything  new  in  the  general  use  I  shall  make 
of  them.  If  there  shall  be  any  novelty,  it  will  be 
in  the  mode  of  presenting  the  facts,  and  the  in 
ferences  and  observations  following  that  presenta 
tion.  In  his  speech  last  autumn  at  Columbus, 
Ohio,  as  reported  in  the  New  York  Times,  Sena 
tor  Douglas  said:  "  Our  fathers,  when  they  framed 
the  government  under  which  we  live,  understood 
this  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we 
do  now." 

I  fully  indorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text 
for  this  discourse.  I  so  adopt  it  because  it  fur 
nishes  a  precise  and  an  agreed  starting-point  for 
a  discussion  between  Republicans  and  that  wing 
of  the  Democracy  headed  by  Senator  Douglas.  It 
simply  leaves  the  inquiry:  What  was  the  under- 


SPEECHES  OF 

stirtding  those  fathers^  hid  of  the  question  men 
tioned? 

What  is  the  frame  of  government  under  which 
we  live?  The  answer  must  be,  "The  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States."  That  Constitution 
consists  of  the  original,  framed  in  1787,  and  un 
der  which  the  present  government  first  went  into 
operation,  and  twelve  subsequently  framed  amend 
ments,  the  first  ten  of  which  were  framed  in  1789. 

Who  were  our  fathers  that  framed  the  Con 
stitution?  I  suppose  the  "thirty-nine"  who 
signed  the  original  instrument  may  be  fairly  called 
our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  the  present 
government.  It  is  almost  exactly  true  to  say  they 
framed  it,  and  it  is  altogether  true  to  say  they 
fairly  represented  the  opinion  and  sentiment  of 
the  whole  nation  at  that  time.  Their  names,  be 
ing  familiar  to  nearly  all,  and  accessible  to  quite 
all,  need  not  now  be  repeated. 

I  take  these  "  thirty-nine,"  for  the  present,  as 
being  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live."  What  is  the  question 
which,  according  to  the  text,  those  fathers  under 
stood  "  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do 


now"? 


It  is  this:  Does  the  proper  division  of  local 
from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Con 
stitution,  forbid  our  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  our  Federal  Territories? 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  3 

Upon  this,  Senator  Douglas  holds  the  affirma 
tive,  and  Republicans  the  negative.  This  af 
firmation  and  denial  form  an  issue;  and  this  issue 
—this  question — is  precisely  what  the  text  de 
clares  our  fathers  understood  "  better  than  we." 
Let  us  now  inquire  whether  the  "  thirty-nine,"  or 
any  of  them,  ever  acted  upon  this  question;  and 
if  they  did,  how  they  acted  upon  it — how  they  ex 
pressed  that  better  understanding.  In  1784,  three 
years  before  the  Constitution,  the  United  States 
then  owning  the  Northwestern  Territory  and  no 
other,  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  had  be 
fore  them  the  question  of  prohibiting  slavery  in 
that  Territory;  and  four  of  the  "thirty-nine" 
who  afterward  framed  the  Constitution  were  in 
that  Congress,  and  voted  on  that  question.  Of 
these,  Roger  Sherman,  Thomas  Mifflin,  and  Hugh 
Williamson  voted  for  the  prohibition,  thus  show 
ing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line  dividing 
local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else, 
properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  The  other 
of  the  four,  James  McHenry,  voted  against  the 
prohibition,  showing  that  for  some  cause  he 
thought  it  improper  to  vote  for  it. 

In  1787,  still  before  the  Constitution,  but  while 
the  convention  was  in  session  framing  it,  and  while 
the  Northwestern  Territory  still  was  the  only  Ter 
ritory  owned  by  the  United  States,  the  same  ques- 


4  TOOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

tion  of  prohibiting  slavery  in  the  Territory  again 
came  before  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation; 
and  two  more  of  the  "  thirty-nine  "  who  after 
ward  signed  the  Constitution  were  in  that  Con 
gress,  and  voted  on  the  question.  They  were  Wil 
liam  Blount  and  William  Few;  and  they  both 
voted  for  the  prohibition — thus  showing  that  in 
their  understanding  no  line  dividing  local  from 
Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else,  properly 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  Federal  territory.  This  time  the  pro 
hibition  became  a  law,  being  part  of  what  is  now 
well  known  as  the  ordinance  of  '87. 

The  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in 
the  Territories  seems  not  to  have  been  directly 
before  the  convention  which  framed  the  original 
Constitution;  and  hence  it  is  not  recorded  that  the 
"  thirty-nine  "  or  any  of  them,  while  engaged  on 
that  instrument,  expressed  any  opinion  on  that 
precise  question. 

In  1789,  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under 
the  Constitution,  an  act  was  passed  to  enforce 
the  ordinance  of  '87,  including  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  The  bill 
for  this  act  was  reported  by  one  of  the  "  thirty- 
nine  "  -Thomas  Fitzsimmons,  then  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  from  Pennsylvania. 
It  went  through  all  its  stages  without  a  word  of 
opposition,  and  finally  passed  both  branches  with- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  5 

out  ayes  and  nays,  which  is  equivalent  to  a  unani 
mous  passage.  In  this  Congress  there  were  six 
teen  of  the  thirty-nine  fathers  who  framed  the 
original  Constitution.  They  were  John  Langdon, 
Nicholas  Gilman,  William  S.  Johnson,  Roger 
Sherman,  Robert  Morris,  Thomas  Fitzsimmons, 
William  Few,  Abraham  Baldwin,  Rufus  King, 
William  Paterson,  George  Clymer,  Richard  Bas- 
sett,  George  Read,  Pierce  Butler,  Daniel  Carroll, 
and  James  Madison. 

This  shows  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line 
dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  any 
thing  in  the  Constitution,  properly  forbade  Con 
gress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Federal  territory; 
else  both  their  fidelity  to  correct  principle,  and  their 
oath  to  support  the  Constitution,  would  have  con 
strained  them  to  oppose  the  prohibition. 

Again,  George  Washington,  another  of  the 
"  thirty-nine,"  was  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  as  such  approved  and  signed  the  bill, 
thus  completing  its  validity  as  a  law,  and  thus 
showing  that,  in  his  understanding,  no  line  divid 
ing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in 
the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Government 
to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

No  great  while  after  the  adoption  of  the  origi 
nal  Constitution,  North  Carolina  ceded  to  the 
Federal  Government  the  country  now  constitut 
ing  the  State  of  Tennessee ;  and  a  few  years  later 


6  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

Georgia  ceded  that  which  now  constitutes  the 
States  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama.  In  both  deeds 
of  cession  it  was  made  a  condition  by  the  ceding 
States  that  the  Federal  Government  should  not 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  ceded  country.  Besides 
this,  slavery  was  then  actually  in  the  ceded  coun 
try.  Under  these  circumstances,  Congress,  on 
taking  charge  of  these  countries,  did  not  abso 
lutely  prohibit  slavery  within  them.  But  they  did 
interfere  with  it — take  control  of  it — even  there, 
to  a  certain  extent.  In  1798  Congress  organized 
the  Territory  of  Mississippi.  In  the  act  of  organi 
zation  they  prohibited  the  bringing  of  slaves  into 
the  Territory  from  any  place  without  the  United 
States,  by  fine,  and  giving  freedom  to  slaves  so 
brought.  This  act  passed  both  branches  of  Con 
gress  without  yeas  and  nays.  In  that  Congress 
were  three  of  the  "  thirty-nine  "  who  framed  the 
original  Constitution.  They  were  John  Langdon, 
(George  Read,  and  Abraham  Baldwin.  They  all 
probably  voted  for  it.  Certainly  they  would  have 
placed  their  opposition  to  it  upon  record  if,  in 
their  understanding,  any  line  dividing  local  from 
Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

In  1803  the  Federal  Government  purchased  the 
Louisiana  country.  Our  former  territorial  acqui 
sitions  came  from  certain  of  our  own  States;  but 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  7 

this  Louisiana  country  was  acquired  from  a  for 
eign  nation.  In  1804  Congress  gave  a  territorial 
organization  to  that  part  of  it  which  now  consti 
tutes  the  State  of  Louisiana.  New  Orleans,  lying 
within  that  part,  was  an  old  and  comparatively 
large  city.  There  were  other  considerable  towns 
and  settlements,  and  slavery  was  extensively  and 
thoroughly  intermingled  with  the  people.  Con 
gress  did  not,  in  the  Territorial  Act,  prohibit  slav 
ery;  but  they  did  interfere  with  it — take  control  of 
it — in  a  more  marked  and  extensive  way  than  they 
did  in  the  case  of  Mississippi.  The  substance  of 
the  provision  therein  made  in  relation  to  slaves 
was: 

i  st.  That  no  slave  should  be  imported  into  the 
Territory  from  foreign  parts. 

2d.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it  who 
had  been  imported  into  the  United  States  since  the 
first  day  of  May,  1798. 

3d.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it, 
except  by  the  owner,  and  for  his  own  use  as  a  set 
tler;  the  penalty  in  all  the  cases  being  a  fine  upon 
the  violator  of  the  law,  and  freedom  to  the  slave. 

This  act  aho  was  passed  without  ayes  or  nays. 
In  the  Congress  which  passed  it  there  were  two  of 
the  "  thirty-nine."  They  were  Abraham  Baldwin 
and  Jonathan  Dayton.  As  stated  in  the  case  of 
Mississippi,  it  is  probable  they  both  voted  for  it. 
They  would  not  have  allowed  it  to  pass  without 


8  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

recording  their  opposition  to  it  if,  in  their  under 
standing,  it  violated  either  the  line  properly  divid 
ing  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  provision 
of  the  Constitution. 

In  1819-20  came  and  passed  the  Missouri  ques 
tion.  Many  votes  were  taken,  by  yeas  and  nays, 
in  both  branches  of  Congress,  upon  the  various 
phases  of  the  general  question.  Two  of  the 
"  thirty-nine  " — Rufus  King  and  Charles  Pinckney 
— were  members  of  that  Congress.  Mr.  King 
steadily  voted  for  slavery  prohibition  and  against 
all  compromises,  while  Mr.  Pinckney  as  steadily 
voted  against  slavery  prohibition  and  against  all 
compromises.  By  this,  Mr.  King  showed  that,  in 
his  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local  from  Fed 
eral  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
was  violated  by  Congress  prohibiting  slavery  in 
Federal  territory;  while  Mr.  Pinckney,  by  his 
votes,  showed  that,  in  his  understanding,  there 
was  some  sufficient  reason  for  opposing  such  pro 
hibition  in  that  case. 

The  cases  I  have  mentioned  are  the  only  acts 
of  the  "thirty-nine,"  or  of  any  of  them,  upon 
the  direct  issue,  which  I  have  been  able  to  discover. 

To  enumerate  the  persons  who  thus  acted  as 
being  four  in  1784,  two  in  1787,  seventeen  in 
1789,  three  in  1798,  two  in  1804,  and  two  in 
1819-20,  there  would  be  thirty  of  them.  But  this 
would  be  counting  John  Langdon,  Roger  Sher- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  g 

man,  William  Few,  Rufus  King,  and  George  Read 
each  twice,  and  Abraham  Baldwin  three  times. 
The  true  number  of  those  of  the  "  thirty-nine  " 
whom  I  have  shown  to  have  acted  upon  the  ques 
tion  which,  by  the  text,  they  understood  better 
than  we,  is  twenty-three,  leaving  sixteen  not  shown 
to  have  acted  upon  it  in  any  way. 

Here,  then,  we  have  twenty-three  out  of  our 
thirty-nine  fathers  "  who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,"  who  have,  upon  their  offi 
cial  responsibility  and  their  corporal  oaths,  acted 
upon  the  very  question  which  the  text  affirms  they 
"  understood  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we 
do  now  " ;  and  twenty-one  of  them — a  clear  ma 
jority  of  the  whole  "  thirty-nine  " — so  acting  upon 
it  as  to  make  them  guilty  of  gross  political  impro 
priety  and  willful  perjury  if,  in  their  understand 
ing,  any  proper  division  between  local  and  Fed 
eral  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution 
they  had  made  themselves,  and  sworn  to  support, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  Thus  the 
twenty-one  acted;  and,  as  actions  speak  louder 
than  words,  so  actions  under  such  responsibility 
speak  still  louder. 

Two  of  the  twenty-three  voted  against  congres 
sional  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Ter 
ritories,  in  the  instances  in  which  they  acted  upon 
the  question.  But  for  what  reasons  they  so  voted 


io  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

is  not  known.  They  may  have  done  so  because 
they  thought  a  proper  division  of  local  from  Fed 
eral  authority,  or  some  provision  or  principle  of 
the  Constitution,  stood  in  the  way;  or  they  may, 
without  any  such  question,  have  voted  against  the 
prohibition  on  what  appeared  to  them  to  be  suffi 
cient  grounds  of  expediency.  No  one  who  has 
sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  can  conscien 
tiously  vote  for  what  he  understands  to  be  an  un 
constitutional  measure,  however  expedient  he  may 
think  it;  but  one  may  and  ought  to  vote  against 
a  measure  which  he  deems  constitutional  if,  at 
the  same  time,  he  deems  it  inexpedient.  It,  there 
fore,  would  be  unsafe  to  set  down  even  the  two 
who  voted  against  the  prohibition  as  having  done 
so  because,  in  their  understanding,  any  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any 
thing  in  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal 
territory. 

The  remaining  sixteen  of  the  "  thirty-nine,"  so 
far  as  I  have  discovered,  have  left  no  record  of 
their  understanding  upon  the  direct  question  of 
Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Terri 
tories.  But  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that 
their  understanding  upon  that  question  would  not 
have  appeared  different  from  that  of  their  twenty- 
three  compeers,  had  it  been  manifested  at  all. 

For  the  purpose  of  adhering  rigidly  to  the  text, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  n 

I  have  purposely  omitted  whatever  understanding 
may  have  been  manifested  by  any  person,  however 
distinguished,  other  than  the  thirty-nine  fathers, 
who  framed  the  original  Constitution;  and,  for 
the  same  reason,  I  have  also  omitted  whatever  un 
derstanding  may  have  been  manifested  by  any  of 
the  "  thirty-nine  "  even  on  any  other  phase  of 
the  general  question  of  slavery.  If  we  should  look 
into  their  acts  and  declarations  on  those  other 
phases,  as  the  foreign  slave-trade,  and  the  morality 
and  policy  of  slavery  generally,  it  would  appear 
to  us  that  on  the  direct  question  of  Federal  con 
trol  of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  the  six 
teen,  if  they  had  acted  at  all,  would  probably 
have  acted  just  as  the  twenty-three  did.  Among 
that  sixteen  were  several  of  the  most  noted  anti- 
slavery  men  of  those  times, — as  Dr.  Franklin, 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  Gouverneur  Morris, — 
while  there  was  not  one  now  known  to  have  been 
otherwise,  unless  it  may  be  John  Rutledge,  of 
South  Carolina. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  is,  that  of  our  thirty- 
nine  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitu 
tion,  twenty-one — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole— 
certainly  understood  that  no  proper  division  of 
local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  any  part  of  the 
Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to 
control  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories;  while 
all  the  rest  had  probably  the  same  understanding. 


12  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

Such,  unquestionably,  was  the  understanding  of 
our  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution; 
and  the  text  affirms  that  they  understood  the  ques 
tion  "  better  than  we." 

But,  so  far,  I  have  been  considering  the  under 
standing  of  the  question  manifested  by  the  framers 
of  the  original  Constitution.  In  and  by  the  origi 
nal  instrument,  a  mode  was  provided  for  amend 
ing  it;  and,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  present 
frame  of  "  the  government  under  which  we  live  n 
consists  of  that  original,  and  twelve  amendatory 
articles  framed  and  adopted  since.  Those  who 
now  insist  that  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Fed 
eral  Territories  violates  the  Constitution,  point  us 
to  the  provisions  which  they  suppose  it  thus  vio 
lates;  and,  as  I  understand,  they  all  fix  upon  pro 
visions  in  these  amendatory  articles,  and  not  in 
the  original  instrument.  The  Supreme  Court,  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case,  plant  themselves  upon  the 
fifth  amendment,  which  provides  that  no  person 
shall  be  deprived  of  "  life,  liberty,  or  property 
without  due  process  of  law  " ;  while  Senator  Doug 
las  and  his  peculiar  adherents  plant  themselves 
upon  the  tenth  amendment,  providing  that  "  the 
powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the 
Constitution  "  "  are  reserved  to  the  States  respect 
ively,  or  to  the  people." 

Now,  it  so  happens  that  these  amendments  were 
framed  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  13 

Constitution — the  identical  Congress  which  passed 
the  act,  already  mentioned,  enforcing  the  prohibi 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory. 
Not  only  was  it  the  same  Congress,  but  they  were 
the  identical,  same  individual  men  who,  at  the 
same  session,  and  at  the  same  time  within  the  ses 
sion,  had  under  consideration,  and  in  progress  to 
ward  maturity,  these  constitutional  amendments, 
and  this  act  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  terri 
tory  the  nation  then  owned.  The  constitutional 
amendments  were  introduced  before,  and  passed 
after,  the  act  enforcing  the  ordinance  of  '87;  so 
that,  during  the  whole  pendency  of  the  act  to  en 
force  the  ordinance,  the  constitutional  amendments 
were  also  pending. 

The  seventy-six  members  of  that  Congress,  in 
cluding  sixteen  of  the  framers  of  the  original  Con 
stitution,  as  before  stated,  were  pre-eminently  our 
fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  "  the  government 
under  which  we  live  "  which  is  now  claimed  as  for 
bidding  the  Federal  Government  to  control  slav 
ery  in  the  Federal  Territories. 

Is  it  not  a  little  presumptuous  in  anyone  at  this 
day  to  affirm  that  the  two  things  which  that  Con 
gress  deliberately  framed  and  carried  to  maturity 
at  the  same  time,  are  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
each  other?  And  does  not  such  affirmation  be 
come  impudently  absurd  when  coupled  with  the 
other  affirmation  from  the  same  mouth,  that  those 


14  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

who  did  the  two  things  alleged  to  be  inconsistent, 
understood  whether  they  really  were  inconsistent 
better  than  we — better  than  he  who  affirms  that 
they  are  inconsistent? 

It  is  surely  safe  to  assume  that  the  thirty-nine 
framers  of  the  original  Constitution,  and  the  sev 
enty-six  members  of  the  Congress  which  framed 
the  amendments  thereto,  taken  together,  do  cer 
tainly  include  those  who  may  be  fairly  called  u  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live."  And  so  assuming,  I  defy  any  man  to 
show  that  any  one  of  them  ever,  in  his  whole  life, 
declared  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any 
part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal 
Territories.  I  go  a  step  further.  I  defy  anyone 
to  show  that  any  living  man  in  the  whole  world 
ever  did,  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen 
tury  (and  I  might  almost  say  prior  to  the  begin 
ning  of  the  last  half  of  the  present  century),  de 
clare  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper  divi 
sion  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part 
of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Ter 
ritories.  To  those  who  now  so  declare  I  give  not 
only  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,"  but  with  them  all  other  liv 
ing  men  within  the  century  in  which  it  was  framed, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  15 

among  whom  to  search,  and  they  shall  not  be  able 
to  find  the  evidence  of  a  single  man  agreeing  with 
them. 

Now,  and  here,  let  me  guard  a  little  against  be 
ing  misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  are 
bound  to  follow  implicitly  in  whatever  our  fathers 
did.  To  do  so  would  be  to  discard  all  the  lights 
of  current  experience — to  reject  all  progress,  all 
improvement.  What  I  do  say  is  that,  if  wre  would 
supplant  the  opinions  and  policy  of  our  fathers  in 
any  case,  we  should  do  so  upon  evidence  so  con 
clusive,  and  argument  so  clear,  that  even  their 
great  authority,  fairly  considered  and  weighed, 
cannot  stand;  and  most  surely  not  in  a  case  whereof 
we  ourselves  declare  they  understood  the  question 
better  than  we. 

If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  that 
a  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority, 
or  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Fed 
eral  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories,  he  is  right  to  say  so,  and  to 
enforce  his  position  by  all  truthful  evidence  and 
fair  argument  which  he  can.  But  he  has  no  right 
to  mislead  others,  who  have  less  access  to  history, 
and  less  leisure  to  study  it,  into  the  false  belief 
that  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  un 
der  which  we  live  "  were  of  the  same  opinion — 
thus  substituting  falsehood  and  deception  for 
truthful  evidence  and  fair  argument.  If  any  man 


1 6  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

at  this  day  sincerely  believes  "  our  fathers  who 
framed  the  government  under  which  we  live  "  used 
and  applied  principles,  in  other  cases,  which  ought 
to  have  led  them  to  understand  that  a  proper  divi 
sion  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some  part 
of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Ter 
ritories,  he  is  right  to  say  so.  But  he  should,  at 
the  same  time,  brave  the  responsibility  of  declar 
ing  that,  in  his  opinion,  he  understands  their  prin 
ciples  better  than  they  did  themselves;  and  espe 
cially  should  he  not  shirk  that  responsibility  by 
asserting  that  they  "  understood  the  question  just 
as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now." 

But  enough !  Let  all  who  believe  that  "  our  fa 
thers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we 
live  understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even 
better,  than  we  do  now,"  speak  as  they  spoke,  and 
act  as  they  acted  upon  it.  This  is  all  Republicans 
ask — all  Republicans  desire — in  relation  to  slav 
ery.  As  those  fathers  marked  it,  so  let  it  be  again 
marked,  as  an  evil  not  to  be  extended,  but  to  be 
tolerated  and  protected  only  because  of  and  so  far 
as  its  actual  presence  among  us  makes  that  tolera 
tion  and  protection  a  necessity.  Let  all  the  guar 
antees  those  fathers  gave  it  be  not  grudgingly,  but 
fully  and  fairly,  maintained.  For  this  Republicans 
contend,  and  with  this,  so  far  as  I  know  or  believe, 
they  will  be  content. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  17 

And  now,  if  they  would  listen, — as  I  suppose 
they  will  not, — I  would  address  a  few  words  to 
the  Southern  people. 

I  would  say  to  them :  You  consider  yourselves  a 
reasonable  and  a  just  people;  and  I  consider  that 
in  the  general  qualities  of  reason  anc|  justice  you 
are  not  inferior  to  any  other  people.  •  Still,  when 
you  speak  of  us  Republicans,  you  do  so  only  to 
denounce  us  as  reptiles,  or,  at  the  best,  as  no  bet 
ter  than  outlaws.  You  will  grant  a  hearing  to 
pirates  or  murderers,  but  nothing  like  it  to  "  Black 
Republicans."  In  all  your  contentions  with  one 
another,  each  of  you  deems  an  unconditional  con 
demnation  of  "  Black  Republicanism  "  as  the  first 
thing  to  be  attended  to.  Indeed,  such  condemna 
tion  of  us  seems  to  be  an  indispensable  prerequisite 
— license,  so  to  speak — among  you  to  be  admitted 
or  permitted  to  speak  at  all.  Now  can  you  or  not 
be  prevailed  upon  to  pause  and  to  consider  whether 
this  is  quite 'just  to  us,  or  even  to  yourselves? 
Bring  forward  your  charges  and  specifications,  and 
then  be  patient  long  enough  to  hear  us  deny  or 
justify. 

You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That 
makes  an  issue;  and  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon 
you.  You  produce  your  proof;  and  what  is  it? 
Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  sec 
tion — gets  no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is 
substantially  true;  but  does  it  prove  the  issue?  If 


1 8  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

it  does,  then  in  case  we  should,  without  change  of 
principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your  section,  we 
should  thereby  cease  to  be  sectional.  You  cannot 
escape  this  conclusion;  and  yet  are  you  willing  to 
abide  by  it?  If  you  are,  you  will  probably ' soon 
find  that  we  have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for  we 
shall  get  votes  in  your  section  this  very  year.  You 
will  then  begin  to  discover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is, 
that  your  proof  does  not  touch  the  issue.  The 
fact  that  we  get  no  votes  in  your  section  is  a  fact  of 
your  making,  and  not  of  ours.  And  if  there  be 
fault  in  that  fact,  that  fault  is  primarily  yours, 
and  remains  so  until  you  show  that  we  repel  you 
by  some  wrong  principle  or  practice.  If  we  do  re 
pel  you  by  any  wrong  principle  or  practice,  the  fault 
is  ours;  but  this  brings  you  to  where  you  ought  to 
have  started — to  a  discussion  of  the  right  or 
wrong  of  our  principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in 
practice,  would  wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit 
of  ours,  or  for  any  other  object,  then  our  principle, 
and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and  are  justly  op 
posed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on 
the  question  of  whether  our  principle,  put  in  prac 
tice,  would  wrong  your  section;  and  so  meet  us  as 
if  it  were  possible  that  something  may  be  said 
on  our  side.  Do  you  accept  the  challenge?  No  I 
Then  you  really  believe  that  the  principle  which 
"  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under 
which  we  live "  thought  so  clearly  right  as  to 


'ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  19 

adopt  it,  and  indorse  it  again  and  again,  upon  their 
official  oaths,  is  in  fact  so  clearly  wrong  as  to  de 
mand  your  condemnation '  without  a  moment's 

•  i        • 

consideration. 

Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the 
j9m njf'agamst  sectional  parties  given  by  Wash 
ington  in  his  Farewell  AddreSs!. — feeSTthan  eight 
years  before  Washington  gave  that  warning,  he 
had,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  approved 
and  signed  an  act  of  Congress  enforcing  the  pro 
hibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory, 
which  act  embodied  the  policy  of  the  government 
upon  that  subject  up  to  and  at  the  very  moment 
he  penned  that  warning;  and  about  one  year  after 
he  penned  it,  he  wrote  Lafayette  that  he  consid 
ered  that  prohibition  a  wise  measure,  expressing 
in  the  same  connection  his  hope  that  we  should  at 
some  time  have  a  confederacy  of  free  States. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  section 
alism  has  since  arisen  upon  this  same  subject,  is 
that  warning  a  weapon  in  your  hands  against  us, 
or  in  our  hands  against  you?  Could  Washington 
himself  speak,  would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  sec 
tionalism  upon  us,  who  sustain  his  policy,  or  upon 
you,  who  repudiate  it?  WTe  respect  that  warning 
of  Washington,  and  we  commend  it  to  you,  to 
gether  with  his  example  pointing  to  the  right  ap 
plication  of  it. 

But  you   say  you   are   conservative — eminently 


20  ^OT ED  SPEECHES  OF 

conservative- — while  we  are  revolutionary,  dt- 
structive,  or  something  of  the  sort.  What  is  con 
servatism?  Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old  and 
tried,  against  the  new  and  untried?  We  stick  to, 
contend  for,  the  identical  old  policy  on  thepoint 
in  controversy  which  was  adopted  by  "  our  fa*- 
thers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live  " ;  while  you  with  one  accord  reject,  and 
scout,  and  spit  upon  that  old  policy,  and  insist 
upon  substituting  something  new.  True,  you  dis 
agree  among  yourselves  as  to  what  that  substitute 
shall  be.  You  are  divided  on  new  propositions 
•nd  plans,  but  you  are  unanimous  in  rejecting  and 
renouncing  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  Some 
of  you  are  for  reviving  the  foreign  slave-trade; 
some  for  a  congressional  slave  code  for  the  Ter 
ritories;  some  for  Congress  forbidding  the  Terri 
tories  to  prohibit  slavery  within  their  limits;  some 
for  maintaining  slavery  in  the  Territories  through 
the  judiciary;  some  for  the  "  gur-reat  pur-rinciple  " 
that  "  if  one  man  would  enslave  another,  no  third 
man  should  object,"  fantastically  called  "  popular 
sovereignty";  but  never  a  man  among  you  is  in 
favor  of  Federal  prohibition  of  slavery  in  Federal 
Territories,  according  to  the  practice  of  "  our  fa 
thers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we 
live."  Not  one  of  all  your  various  plans  can  show 
a  precedent  or  an  advocate  in  the  century  within 
which  our  government  originated.  Consider,  then, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  21 

whether  your  claim  of  conservatism  for  yourselves, 
and  your  charge  of  destructiveness  against  us,  are 
based  on  the  most  clear  and  stable  foundation. 

Again,  you  say  we  have  made  the  slaver)  ques 
tion  more  prominent  than  it  formerly  was.     We 
deny  it.     We  admit  that  it  is  more  prominent,  but 
we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.     It  was  noc 
you,  who  discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fa. 
We  resisted,  and  still  resist,  your  innovation;  ah 
thence  comes  the  greater  prominence  of  the  ques 
tion.     Would  you  have  that  question  reduced  to 
its  former  proportions?     Go  back  to  that  c   i  pol 
icy.    What  has  been  will  be  again,  under  the  same 
conditions.     If  you  would  have  the  peace  of  the 
old  times,  readopt  the  precepts  and  policy  of  the 
old  times. 

You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among 
your  slaves.  We  deny  it;  and  what  is  your  proof? 
Harper's  Ferry!  John  Brown!  John  Brown  was 
no  Republican;  and  you  have  failed  to  implicate 
a  single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enter 
prise.  If  any  member  of  our  party  is  guilty  in 
that  matter  you  know  it,  or  you  do  not  know  it. 
If  you  do  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  not 
designating  the  man  and  proving  the  fact.  If 
you  do  not  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  as 
serting  it,  and  especially  for  persisting  in  the 
assertion  after  you  have  tried  and  failed  to  make 
the  proof.  You  need  not  be  told  that  persisting 


22  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

in  a  charge  which  one  does  not  know  to  be  true, 
is  simply  malicious  slander. 

Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican  design 
edly  aided  or  encouraged  the  Harper's  Ferry  af 
fair,  but  still  insist  that  our  doctrines  and  decla 
rations  necessarily  lead  to  such  results.  We  do 
-.believe  it.  We  know  we  hold  no  doctrine,  and 
no  declaration,  which  were  not  held  to  and 
'  our  fathers  who  framed  the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live."  You  never  dealt 
V  fairly  by  us  in  relation  to  this  affair.  When  it 
occurred,  some  important  State  elections  were  near 
at  hand,  and  you  were  in  evident  glee  with  the 
belief  that,  by  charging  the  blame  upon  us,  you 
could  get  an  advantage  of  us  in  those  elections. 
The  elections  came,  and  your  expectations  were 
not  quite  fulfilled.  Every  Republican  man  knew 
that,  as  to  himself  at  least,  your  charge  was  a 
slander,  and  he  was  not  much  inclined  by  it  to 
cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  Republican  doctrines 
and  declarations  are  accompanied  with  a  continual 
protest  against  any  interference  whatever  with 
your  slaves,  or  with  you  about  your  slaves.  Surely 
this  does  not  encourage  them  to  revolt.  True,  we 
do,  in  common  with  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the 
government  under  which  we  live,"  declare  our  be 
lief  that  slavery  is  wrong;  but  the  slaves  do  not 
hear  us  declare  even  this.  For  anything  we  say 
or  do,  the  slaves  would  scarcely  know  there  is  a 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  23 

Republican  party.  I  believe  they  would  not,  in 
fact,  generally  know  it  but  for  your  misrepresenta 
tions  of  us  in  their  hearing.  In  your  political  con 
tests  among  yourselves,  each  faction  charges  the 
other  with  sympathy  with  Black  Republicanism; 
and  then,  to  give  point  to  the  charge,  defines  Black 
Republicanism  to  simply  be  insurrection,  blood, 
and  thunder  among  the  slaves. 

)  Slave  insurrections  are  no  more  common  now 
than  they  were  before  the  Republican  party  was 
organized.  What  induced  the  Southampton  in 
surrection,  twenty-eight  years  ago,  in  which  at 
least  three  times  as  many  lives  were  lost  as  at  Har 
per's  Ferry?  You  can  scarcely  stretch  your  very 
elastic  fancy  to  the  conclusion  that  Southampton 
was  "  got  up  by  Black  Republicanism."  In  the 
present  state  of  things  in  the  United  States,  I  do 
not  think  a  general,  or  even  a  very  extensive,  slave 
insurrection  is  possible.  The  indispensable  concert 
of  action  cannot  be  attained.  The  slaves  have  no 
means  of  rapid  communication;  nor  can  incendiary 
freemen,  black  or  white,  supply  it.  The  explosive 
materials  are  everywhere  in  parcels;  but  there 
neither  are,  nor  can  be  supplied,  the  indispensable 
connecting  trains. 

Much  is  said  by  Southern  people  about  the  af 
fection  of  slaves  for  their  masters  and  mistresses; 
and  a  part  of  it,  at  least,  is  true.  A  plot  for  an 
uprising  could  scarcely  be  devised  and  communU 


24  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

cated  to  twenty  individuals  before  some  one  of 
them,  to  save  the  life  of  a  favorite  master  or  mis 
tress,  would  divulge  it.  This  is  the  rule;  and  the 
slave  revolution  in  Hayti  was  not  an  exception 
to  it,  but  a  case  occurring  under  peculiar  circum 
stances.  The  gunpowder  plot  of  British  history, 
though  not  connected  with  slaves,  was  more  in 
point.  In  that  case  only  about  twenty  were  admit 
ted  to  the  secret;  and  yet  one  of  them,  in  his 
anxiety  to  save  a  friend,  betrayed  the  plot  to  that 
friend,  and,  by  consequence,  averted  the  calamity. 
Occasional  poisonings  from  the  kitchen  and  open 
or  stealthy  assassinations  in  the  field,  and  local  re 
volts  extending  to  a  score  or  so,  will  continue  to 
occur  as  the  natural  results  of  slavery;  but  no  gen 
eral  insurrections  of  slaves,  as  I  think,  can  hap 
pen  in  this  country  for  a  long  time.  Whoever 
much  fears,  or  much  hopes,  for  such  an  event,  will 
be  alike  disappointed. 

In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  uttered  many 
years  ago,  "  It  is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the 
process  of  emancipation  and  deportation  peace 
ably,  and  in  such  slow  degrees,  as  that  the  evil  will 
wear  off  insensibly ;  and  their  places  be,  pan  passu, 
filled  up  by  free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the  con 
trary,  it  is  left  to  force  itself  on,  human  nature 
must  shudder  at  the  prospect  held  up." 

Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  mean  to  say,  nor  do  I, 
that  the  power  of  emancipation  is  in  the  Federal 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  25 

Government.  He  spoke  of  Virginia;  and,  as  to 
the  power  of  emantipation,  I  speak  of  the  slave- 
holding  States  only.  The  Federal  Government, 
however,  as  we  insist,  has  the  power  of  restraining 
the  extension  of  the  institution — the  power  to  in 
sure  that  a  slave  insurrection  shall  never  occur  on 
any  American  soil  which  is  now  free  from  slavery. 

John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not 
a  slave  insurrection.  It  was  an  attempt  by  white 
men  to  get  up  a  revolt  among  slaves,  in  which  the 
slaves  refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was  so 
absurd  that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance, 
saw  plainly  enough  it  could  not  succeed.  That  af 
fair,  in  its  philosophy,  corresponds  with  the  many 
attempts,  related  in  history,  at  the  assassination  of 
kings  and  emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods  over 
the  oppression  of  a  people  till  he  fancies  himself 
commissioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He 
ventures  the  attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than 
his  own  execution.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Na 
poleon  and  John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's 
Ferry  were,  in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same. 
The  eagerness  to  cast  blame  on  old  England  in  the 
one  case  and  on  New  England  in  the  other,  does 
not  disprove  the  sameness  of  the  two  things. 

And  how  much  would  it  avail  you,  if  you  could, 
by  the  use  of  John  Brown,  Helper's  Book,  and  the 
like,  breakup  the  Republican  organization?  Hu 
man  action  can  be  modified  to  some  extent,  but 


26  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

human  nature  cannot  be  changed.  There  is  a 
judgment  and  a  feeling  against  slavery  in  this  na 
tion  which  cast  at  least  a  million  and  a  half  of 
votes.  You  cannot  destroy  that  judgment  and 
feeling — that  sentiment — by  breaking  up  the  po 
litical  organization  which  rallies  around  it.  You 
can  scarcely  scatter  and  disperse  an  army  which 
has  been  formed  into  order  in  the  face  of  your 
heaviest  fire;  but  if  you  could,  how  much  would 
you  gain  by  forcing  the  sentiment  which  created 
it  out  of  the  peaceful  channel  of  the  ballot-box  into 
some  other  channel?  What  would  that  other 
channel  probably  be?  Would  the  number  of  John 
Browns  be  lessened  or  enlarged  by  the  operation? 

But  you  will  break  up  the  Union  rather  than 
submit  to  a  denial  of  your  constitutional  rights. 

That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound;  but  it 
would  be  palliated,  if  not  fully  justified,  were  we 
proposing,  by  the  mere  force  of  numbers,  to  de 
prive  you  of  some  right  plainly  written  down  in 
the  Constitution.  But  we  are  proposing  no  such 
thing. 

When  you  make  these  declarations,  you  have  a 
specific  and  well-understood  allusion  to  an  assumed 
constitutional  right  of  yours  to  take  slaves  into 
the  Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as 
property.  But  no  such  right  is  specifically  written 
in  the  Constitution.  That  instrument  is  literally 
silent  about  any  such  right.  We,  on  the  contrary, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  27 

deny  that  such  a  right  has  any  existence  in  the  Con 
stitution,  even  by  implication. 

Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is  that  you 
will  destroy  the  government,  unless  you  be  allowed 
to  construe  and  force  the  Constitution  as  you 
please,  on  all  points  in  dispute  between  you  and 
us.  You  will  rule  or  ruin  in  all  events. 

This,  plainly  stated,  is  your  language.  Per 
haps  you  will  say  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided 
the  disputed  constitutional  question  in  your  favor. 
Not  quite  so.  But  waiving  the  lawyer's  distinction 
between  dictum  and  decision,  the  court  has  decided 
the  question  for  you  in  a  sort  of  way.  The  court 
has  substantially  said,  it  is  your  constitutional  right 
to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and  to 
hold  them  there  as  property.  When  I  say  the  de 
cision  was  made  in  a  sort  of  way,  I  mean  it  was 
made  in  a  divided  court,  by  a  bare  majority  of 
the  judges,  and  they  not  quite  agreeing  with  one 
another  in  the  reasons  for  making  it;  that  it  is  so 
made  that  its  avowed  supporters  disagree  with  one 
another  about  its  meaning,  and  that  it  was  mainly 
based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — the 
statement  in  the  opinion  that  "  the  right  of  prop 
erty  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
in  the  Constitution." 

An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  not  "  distinctly 
and  expressly  affirmed  "  in  it.  Bear  in  mind,  the 


28  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

judges  do  not  pledge  their  judicial  opinion  that 
such  right  is  impliedly  affirmed  in  the  Con 
stitution;  but  they  pledge  their  veracity  that  it  is 
"  distinctly  and  expressly  "  affirmed  there — "  dis 
tinctly,"  that  is,  not  mingled  with  anything  else — 
"  expressly,"  that  is,  in  words  meaning  just  that, 
without  the  aid  of  any  inference,  and  susceptible 
of  no  other  meaning. 

If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion 
that  such  right  is  affirmed  in  the  instrument  by 
implication,  it  would  be  open  to  others; to  show 
that  neither  the  word  "  slave  "  nor  "  slavery  "  is 
to  be  found  in  the  Constitution,  nor  the  word 
"  property  "  even,  in  any  connection  with  language 
alluding  to  the  things  slave,  or  slavery;  and  that 
wherever  in  that  instrument  the  slave  is  alluded 
to,  he  is  called  a  "  person";  and  wherever  his 
master's  legal  right  in  relation  to  him  is  alluded 
to,  it  is  spoken  of  as  "  service  or  labor  which  may 
be  due  " — as  a  debt  payable  in  service  or  labor. 
Also  it  would  be  open  to  show,  by  contempora 
neous  history,  that  this  mode  of  alluding  to  slaves 
and  slavery,  instead  of  speaking  of  them,  was 
employed  on  purpose  to  exclude  from  the  Consti 
tution  the  idea  that  there  could  be  property  in 
man. 

To  show  all  this  is  easy  and  certain. 

When  this  obvious  mistake  of  the  judges  shall 
be  brought  to  their  notice,  is  it  not  reasonable  to 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  29 

expect  that  they  will  withdraw  the  mistaken  state 
ment,  and  reconsider  the  conclusion  based  upon  it? 

And  then  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  u  our  fa 
thers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live  "  — the  men  who  made  the  Constitution — 
decided  this  same  constitutional  question  in  our 
favor  long  ago:  decided  it  without  division  among 
themselves  when  making  the  decision;  without  di 
vision  among  themselves  about  the  meaning  of  it 
after  it  was  made,  and,  so  far  as  any  evidence  is 
left,  without  basing  it  upon  any  mistaken  state 
ment  of  facts. 

Under  all  these  circumstances,  do  you  really  feel 
yourselves  justified  to  break  up  this  government 
unless  such  a  court  decision  as  yours  is  shall  be 
at  once  submitted  to  as  a  conclusive  and  final  rule 
of  political  action?  But  you  will  not  abide  the 
election  of  a  Republican  president!  In  that  sup 
posed  event,  you  say,  you  will  destroy  the  Union; 
and  then,  you  say,  the  great  crime  of  having  de 
stroyed  it  will  be  upon  us !  That  is  cool.  A  high 
wayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my  ear,  and  mutters 
through  his  teeth,  "  Stand  and  deliver,  or  I  shall 
kill  you,  and  then  you  will  be  a  murderer!  " 

To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — 
my  money — was  my  own ;  and  I  had  a  clear  right 
to  keep  it;  but  it  was  no  more  my  own  than  my 
vote  is  my  own;  and  the  threat  of  death  to  me, 
to  extort  my  money,  and  the  threat  of  destruction 


30  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

to  the  Union,  to  extort  my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  dis 
tinguished  in  principle. 

A  few  words  now  to  Republicans.  It  is  exceed 
ingly  desirable  that  all  parts  of  this  great  Con 
federacy  shall  be  at  peace  and  in  harmony  one 
with  another.  Let  us  Republicans  do  our  part  to 
have  it  so.  Even  though  much  provoked,  let  us 
do  nothing  through  passion  and  ill-temper.  Even 
though  the  Southern  people  will  not  so  much  as 
listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly  consider  their  demands, 
and  yield  to  them  if,  in  our  deliberate  view  of  our 
duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging  by  all  they  say  and 
do,  and  by  the  subject  and  nature  of  their  contro 
versy  with  us,  let  us  determine,  if  we  can,  what 
will  satisfy  them. 

Will  they  be  satisfied  if  the  Territories  be  un 
conditionally  surrendered  to  them?  We  know 
they  will  not.  In  all  their  present  complaints 
against  us,  the  Territories  are  scarcely  mentioned. 
Invasions  and  insurrections  are  the  rage  now. 

2i*%  .       .  . 

Will  it  satisfy  them  if,  in  the  future,  we  have  noth 
ing  to  do  with  invasions  and  insurrections?  We 
know  it  will  not.  We  so  know,  because  we  know 
we  never  had  anything  to  do  with  invasions  and 
insurrections;  and  yet  this  total  abstaining  does 
not  exempt  us  from  the  charge  and  the  denun 
ciation. 

The  question  recurs,  What  will  satisfy  them? 
Simply  this:  we  must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  31 

we  must  somehow  convince  them  that  we  do  let 
them  alone.  This,  we  know  by  experience,  is  no 
easy  task.  We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince 
them  from  the  very  beginning  of  our  organization, 
but  with  no  success.  In  all  our  platforms  and 
speeches  we  have  constantly  protested  our  purpose 
to  let  them  alone;  but  this  has  had  no  tendency  to 
convince  them.  Alike  unavailing  to  convince  them 
is  the  fact  that  they  have  never  detected  a  man  of 
us  in  any  attempt  to  disturb  them. 

These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means 
all  failing,  what  will  convince  them?  This,  and 
this  only:  cease  to  call  slavery  wrong,  and  join 
them  in  calling  it  right.  And  this  must  be  done 
thoroughly — done  in  acts  as  well  as  in  words.  Si 
lence  will  not  be  tolerated — we  must  place  our 
selves  avowedly  with  them.  Senator  Douglas's 
new  sedition  law  must  be  enacted  and  enforced, 
suppressing  all  declarations  that  slavery  is  wrong, 
whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses,  in  pulpits,  or 
in  private.  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugi 
tive  slaves  with  greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull 
down  our  free-State  constitutions.  The  whole  at 
mosphere  must  be  disinfected  from  all  taint  of 
opposition  to  slavery,  before  they  will  cease  to 
believe  that  all  their  troubles  proceed  from  us. 

I  am  quite  aware  they  do  not  state  their  case 
precisely  in  this  way.  Most  of  them  would  prob 
ably  say  to  us,  "Let  us  alone;  do  nothing  to  us, 


32  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

and  say  what  you  please  about  slavery."  But  we 
do  let  them  alone, — have  never  disturbed  them, — 
so  that,  after  all,  it  is  what  we  say  which  dissatis 
fies  them.  They  will  continue  to  accuse  us  of  do-, 
ing,  until  we  cease  saying. 

I  am  also  aware  they  have  not  as  yet  in  terms 
demanded  the  overthrow  of  our  free-State  consti 
tutions.  Yet  those  constitutions  declare  the  wrong 
of  slavery  with  more  solemn  emphasis  than  do  all 
other  sayings  against  it;  and  when  all  these  other 
sayings  shall  have  been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of 
these  constitutions  will  be  demanded,  and  nothing 
be  left  to  resist  the  demand.  It  is  nothing  to  the 
contrary  that  they  do  not  demand  the  whole  of  this 
just  now.  Demanding  what  they  do,  and  for  the 
reason  they  do,  they  can  voluntarily  stop  nowhere 
short  of  this  consummation.  Holding,  as  they  do, 
that  slavery  is  morally  right  and  socially  elevating, 
they  cannot  cease  to  demand  a  full  national  recog 
nition  of  it  as  a  legal  right  and  a  social  blessing. 

Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any 
ground  save  our  conviction  that  slavery  is  wrong. 
If  slavery  is  right,  all  words,  acts,  laws,  and  consti 
tutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and  should 
be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we  can 
not  justly  object  to  its  nationality — its  universality; 
if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot  justly  insist  upon  its 
extension — its  enlargement.  All  they  ask  we  could 
readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery  right;  all  we 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  33 

ask  they  could  as  readily  grant,  if  they  thought  it 
wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right  and  our  thinking 
it  wrong  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  depends 
the  whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  right,  as  they 
do,  they  are  not  to  blame  for  desiring  its  full  rec 
ognition  as  being  right;  but  thinking  it  wrong,  as 
we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them?  Can  we  cast  our 
votes  with  their  view,  and  against  our  own?  In 
view  of  our  moral,  social,  and  political  responsi 
bilities,  can  we  do  this? 

Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford 
to  let  it  alone  where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due 
to  thejnecessity  arising  from  its  actual  presence  in 
the  nation;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  pre 
vent  it,  allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  Terri 
tories,  and  to  overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States? 
If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand 
by  our  duty  fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be 
diverted  by  none  of  those  sophistical  contrivances 
wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied  and  bela 
bored — contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some 
middle  ground  between  the  right  and  the  wrong: 
vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who  should  be  neither 
a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man;  such  as  a  policy  of 
"  don't  care"  on  a  question  about  which  all  true 
men  do  care;  such  as  Union  appeals  beseeching 
true  Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunionists,  reversing 
the  divine  rule,  and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but 
the  righteous,  to  repentance;  such  as  invocations 


34  NOTED  SPEECHES 

to  Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what 
Washington  said  and  undo  what  Washington  did. 
Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by 
false  accusations  against  us,  nor  frightened  from 
it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the  government, 
nor  of  dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith 
that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us 
to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it. 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  INAUGURAL 
ADDRESS 

MARCH   4,    l86l 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES: — 
In  compliance  with  a  custom  as  old  as  the  gov 
ernment  itself,  I  appear  before  you  to  address  you 
briefly,  and  to  take,  in  your  presence,  the  oath  pre 
scribed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
to  be  taken  by  the  President  before  he  enters  on 
the  execution  of  his  office. 

I  do  not  consider  it  necessary,  at  present,  for 
me  to  discuss  those  matters  of  administration  about 
which  there  is  no  special  anxiety  or  excitement. 
Apprehension  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of 
the  Southern  States,  that,  by  the  accession  of  a  Re 
publican  administration,  their  property  and  their 
peace  and  personal  security  are  to  be  endangered. 
There  has  never  been  any  reasonable  cause  for  such 
apprehension.  Indeed,  the  most  ample  evidence 
to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while  existed  and  been 
open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all 
the  published  speeches  of  him  who  now  addresses 
you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of  those  speeches, 

35 


36  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

when  I  declare  that  "  I  have  no  purpose,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists/'  I  believe  I 
have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so;  and  I  have  no  incli 
nation  to  do  so.  Those  who  nominated  and  elected 
me  did  so  with  the  full  knowledge  that  I  had  made 
this,  and  made  many  similar  declarations,  and  had 
never  recanted  them.  And,  more  than  this,  they 
placed  in  the  platform,  for  my  acceptance,  and 
as  a  law  to  themselves  and  to  me,  the  clear  and 
emphatic  resolution  which  I  now  read: 

"  Resolved,  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of 
the  rights  of  the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of 
each  State  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic 
institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclu 
sively,  is  essential  to  that  balance  of  power  on 
which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our  political 
fabric  depend;  and  we  denounce  the  lawless  inva 
sion  by  armed  force  of  the  soil  of  any  State  or 
Territory,  no  matter  under  what  pretext,  as  among 
the  gravest  of  crimes." 

I  now  reiterate  these  sentiments;  and  in  doing 
so  I  only  press  upon  the  public  attention  the  most 
conclusive  evidence  of  which  the  case  is  susceptible, 
that  the  property,  peace,  and  security  of  no  sec 
tion  are  to  be  in  anywise  endangered  by  the  now 
incoming  administration. 

I  add,  too,  that  all  the  protection  which,  consis 
tently  with  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  can  be 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  37 

given,  will  be  cheerfully  given  to  all  the  States 
when  lawfully  demanded,  for  whatever  cause,  as 
cheerfully  to  one  section  as  to  another. 

There  is  much  controversy  about  the  delivering 
up  of  fugitives  from  service  or  labor.  The  clause 
I  now  read  is  as  plainly  written  in  the  Constitution 
as  any  other  of  its  provisions: 

"  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one 
State  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another, 
shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation 
therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor, 
but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party 
to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due." 

It  is  scarcely  questioned  that  this  provision  was 
intended  by  those  who  made  it  for  the  reclaiming 
of  what  we  call  fugitive  slaves;  and  the  intention 
of  the  law-giver  is  the  law. 

All  members  of  Congress  swear  their  support 
to  the  whole  Constitution — to  this  provision  as 
well  as  any  other.  To  the  proposition,  then,  that 
slaves  whose  cases  come  within  the  terms  of  this 
clause  "  shall  be  delivered  up,"  their  oaths  are 
unanimous.  Now,  if  they  would  make  the  effort 
in  good  temper,  could  they  not,  with  nearly  equal 
unanimity,  frame  and  pass  a  law  by  means  of 
which  to  keep  good  that  unanimous  oath? 

There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  whether  this 
clause  should  be  enforced  by  national  or  by  State 
authority;  but  surely  that  difference  is  not  a  very 


38  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

material  one.  If  the  slave  is  to  be  surrendered,  it 
can  be  of  but  little  consequence  to  him  or  to  others 
by  which  authority  it  is  done;  and  should  anyone, 
in  any  case,  be  content  that  this  oath  shall  go  un- 
kept  on  a  merely  unsubstantial  controversy  as  to 
how  it  shall  be  kept? 

Again,  in  any  law  upon  this  subject,  ought  not 
all  the  safeguards  of  liberty  known  in  civilized 
and  humane  jurisprudence  to  be  introduced,  so  that 
a  free  man  be  not,  in  any  case,  surrendered  as  a 
slave?  And  might  it  not  be  well  at  the  same  time 
to  provide  by  law  for  the  enforcement  of  that 
clause  in  the  Constitution  which  guarantees  that 
"  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all 
the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the 
several  States?  " 

I  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental 
reservations,  and  with  no  purpose  to  construe  the 
Constitution  or  laws  by  any  hypercritical  rules;  and 
while  I  do  not  choose  now  to  specify  particular 
acts  of  Congress  as  proper  to  be  enforced,  I  do 
suggest  that  it  will  be  much  safer  for  all,  both  in 
official  and  private  stations,  to  conform  to  and 
abide  by  all  those  acts  which  stand  unrepealed, 
than  to  violate  any  of  them,  trusting  to  find  im 
punity  in  having  them  held  to  be  unconstitutional. 

It  is  seventy-two  years  since  the  first  inaugura 
tion  of  a  President  under  our  National  Constitu 
tion.  During  that  period,  fifteen  different  and 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  39 

very  distinguished  citizens  have  in  succession  ad 
ministered  the  executive  branch  of  the  Govern 
ment.  They  have  conducted  it  through  many 
perils,  and  generally  with  great  success.  Yet,  with 
all  this  scope  for  precedent,  I  now  enter  upon  the 
same  task,  for  the  brief  constitutional  term  of 
four  years,  under  great  and  peculiar  difficulties. 

A  disruption  of  the  Federal  Union,  heretofore 
only  menaced,  is  now  formidably  attempted.  I 
hold  that  in  the  contemplation  of  universal  law 
and  of  the  Constitution,  the  union  of  these  States 
is  perpetual.  Perpetuity  is  implied,  if  not  ex 
pressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all  national 
governments.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  govern 
ment  proper  ever  had  a  provision  in  its  organic 
law  for  its  own  termination.  Continue  to  execute 
all  the  express  provisions  of  our  National  Con 
stitution,  and  the  Union  will  endure  forever,  it 
being  impossible  to  destroy  it,  except  by  some  ac 
tion  not  provided  for  in  the  instrument  itself. 

Again,  if  the  United  States  be  not  a  govern 
ment  proper,  but  an  association  of  States  in  the 
nature  of  a  contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a  contract, 
be  peaceably  unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties 
who  made  it?  One  party  to  a  contract  may  vio 
late  it — break  it,  so  to  speak;  but  does  it  not 
require  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it?  Descending 
from  these  general  principles,  we  find  the  propo 
sition  that  in  legal  contemplation  the  Union  is  per- 


40  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

petual,  confirmed  by  the  history  of  the  Union 
itself. 

The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Constitution. 
It  was  formed,  in  fact,  by  the  Articles  of  Associa 
tion  in  1774.  It  was  matured  and  continued  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776.  It  was 
further  matured,  and  the  faith  of  all  the  then  thir 
teen  States  expressly  plighted  and  engaged  that  it 
should  be  perpetual,  by  the  Articles  of  the  Con 
federation,  in  1778;  and  finally,  in  1787,  one  of 
the  declared  objects  for  ordaining  and  establishing 
the  Constitution  was  to  form  a  more  perfect 
Union.  But  if  the  destruction  of  the  Union  by  one 
or  by  a  part  only  of  the  States  be  lawfully  possible, 
the  Union  is  less  perfect  than  before,  the  Consti 
tution  having  lost  the  vital  element  of  perpetuity. 

It  follows  from  these  views  that  no  State,  upon 
its  own  mere  motion,  can  lawfully  get  out  of  the 
Union;  that  resolves  and  ordinances  to  that  effect 
are  legally  void;  and  that  acts  of  violence  within 
any  State  or  States  against  the  authority  of  the 
United  States  are  insurrectionary  or  revolutionary, 
according  to  circumstances. 

I  therefore  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  laws,  the  Union  is  unbroken,  and, 
to  the  extent  of  my  ability,  I  shall  take  care,  as  the 
Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that 
the  laws  of  the  Union  shall  be  faithfully  executed 
in  all  the  States.  Doing  this,  which  I  deem  to  be 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  41 

only  a  simple  duty  on  my  part,  I  shall  perfectly 
perform  it,  so  far  as  is  practicable,  unless  my  right 
ful  masters,  the  American  people,  shall  withhold 
the  requisition,  or  in  some  authoritative  manner 
direct  the  contrary. 

I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace, 
but  only  as  the  declared  purpose  of  the  Union  that 
it  will  constitutionally  defend  and  maintain  itself. 

In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or 
violence,  and  there  shall  be  none  unless  it  is  forced 
upon  the  national  authority. 

The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  be 
longing  to  the  Government,  and  collect  the  duties 
and  imposts;  but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary 
for  these  objects  there  will  be  no  invasion,  no  using 
of  force  against  or  among  the  people  anywhere. 

Where  hostility  to  the  United  States  shall  be 
so  great  and  so  universal  as  to  prevent  competent 
resident  citizens  from  holding  Federal  offices,  there 
will  be  no  attempt  to  force  obnoxious  strangers 
among  the  people  that  object.  While  strict  legal 
right  may  exist  of  the  Government  to  enforce  the 
exercise  of  these  offices,  the  attempt  to  do  so  would 
be  so  irritating,  and  so  nearly  impracticable  withal, 
that  I  deem  it  best  to  forego,  for  the  time,  the 
uses  of  such  offices. 

The  mails,  unless  repelled,  will  continue  to  be 
furnished  in  all  parts  of  the  Union. 


42  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

So  far  as  possible,  the  people  everywhere  shall 
have  that  sense  of  perfect  security  which  is  most 
favorable  to  calm  thought  and  reflection. 

The  course  here  indicated  will  be  followed,  un 
less  current  events  and  experience  shall  show  a 
modification  or  change  to  be  proper;  and  in  every 
case  and  exigency  my  best  discretion  will  be  exer 
cised  according  to  the  circumstances  actually  exist 
ing,  and  with  a  view  and  hope  of  a  peaceful  solu 
tion  of  the  national  troubles,  and  the  restoration 
of  fraternal  sympathies  and  affections. 

That  there  are  persons,  in  one  section  or  an 
other,  who  seek  to  destroy  the  Union  at  all  events, 
and  are  glad  of  any  pretext  to  do  it,  I  will  neither 
affirm  nor  deny.  But  if  there  be  such,  I  need  ad 
dress  no  word  to  them. 

To  those,  however,  who  really  love  the  Union, 
may  I  not  speak,  before  entering  upon  so  grave 
a  matter  as  the  destruction  of  our  national  fabric, 
with  all  its  benefits,  its  memories,  and  its  hopes? 
Would  it  not  be  well  to  ascertain  why  we  do  it? 
Will  you  hazard  so  desperate  a  step,  while  any 
portion  of  the  ills  you  fly  from  have  no  real  ex 
istence?  Will  you,  while  the  certain  ills  you  fly 
to  are  greater  than  all  the  real  ones  you  fly  from  ? 
Will  you  risk  the  commission  of  so  fearful  a  mis 
take?  All  profess  to  be  content  in  the  Union  if 
all  constitutional  rights  can  be  maintained.  Is  it 
true,  then,  that  any  right,  plainly  written  in  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  43 

Constitution,  has  been  denied?  I  think  not.  Hap 
pily  the  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  no  party 
can  reach  to  the  audacity  of  doing  this. 

Think,  if  you  can,  of  a  single  instance  in  which 
a  plainly-written  provision  of  the  Constitution  has 
ever  been  denied.  If,  by  the  mere  force  of  num 
bers,  a  majority  should  deprive  a  minority  of  any 
clearly-written  constitutional  right,  it  might,  in  a 
moral  point  of  view,  justify  revolution;  it  certainly 
would  if  such  right  were  a  vital  one.  But  such  is 
not  our  case. 

All  the  vital  rights  of  minorities  and  of  individu 
als  are  so  plainly  assured  to  them  by  affirmations 
and  negations,  guarantees  and  prohibitions  in  the 
Constitution,  that  controversies  never  arise  con 
cerning  them.  But  no  organic  law  can  ever  be 
framed  with  a  provision  specifically  applicable  to 
every  question  which  may  occur  in  practicable  ad 
ministration.  No  foresight  can  anticipate,  nor 
any  document  of  reasonable  length  contain,  ex 
press  provisions  for  all  possible  questions.  Shall 
fugitives  from  labor  be  surrendered  by  National 
or  by  State  authorities?  The  Constitution  does 
not  expressly  say.  Must  Congress  protect  slavery 
in  the  Territories?  The  Constitution  does  not  ex 
pressly  say.  From  questions  of  this  class  spring 
all  our  constitutional  controversies,  and  we  divide 
upon  them  into  majorities  and  minorities. 

If  the  minority  will  not  acquiesce,  the  majority 


44  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

must,  or  the  Government  must  cease.  There  is  no 
alternative  for  continuing  the  Government  but  ac 
quiescence  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  If  a 
minority  in  such  a  case  will  secede  rather  than 
acquiesce,  they  make  a  precedent  which,  in  turn, 
will  ruin  and  divide  them,  for  a  minority  of  their 
own  will  secede  from  them  whenever  a  majority 
refuses  to  be  controlled  by  such  a  minority.  For 
instance,  why  may  not  any  portion  of  a  new  Con 
federacy,  a  year  or  two  hence,  arbitrarily  secede 
again,  precisely  as  portions  of  the  present  Union 
now  claim  to  secede  from  it?  All  who  cherish  dis 
union  sentiments  are  now  being  educated  to  the 
exact  temper  of  doing  this.  Is  there  such  perfect 
identity  of  interests  among  the  States  to  compose 
a  new  Union  as  to  produce  harmony  only,  and 
prevent  renewed  secession?  Plainly,  the  central 
idea  of  secession  is  the  essence  of  anarchy. 

A  majority  held  in  restraint  by  constitutional 
check  and  limitation,  and  always  changing  easily 
with  deliberate  changes  of  popular  opinions  and 
sentiments,  is  the  only  true  sovereign  of  a  free 
people.  Whoever  rejects  it,  does,  of  necessity, 
fly  to  anarchy  or  to  despotism.  Unanimity  is  impos 
sible;  the  rule  of  a  minority,  as  a  permanent  ar 
rangement,  is  wholly  inadmissible.  So  that,  re 
jecting  the  majority  principle,  anarchy  or  despo 
tism,  in  some  form,  is  all  that  is  left. 

I  do  not  forget  the  position  assumed  by  some 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  45 

that  constitutional  questions  are  to  be  decided  by 
the  Supreme  Court,  nor  do  I  deny  that  such  deci 
sions  must  be  binding  in  any  case  upon  the  parties 
to  a  suit,  as  to  the  object  of  that  suit,  while  they 
are  also  entitled  to  a  very  high  respect  and  consid 
eration  in  all  parallel  cases  by  all  other  depart 
ments  of  the  Government;  and  while  it  is  obvi 
ously  possible  that  such  decision  may  be  erroneous 
in  any  given  case,  still  the  evil  effect  following  it, 
being  limited  to  that  particular  case,  with  the 
chance  that  it  may  be  overruled  and  never  become 
a  precedent  for  other  cases,  can  better  be  borne 
than  could  the  evils  of  a  different  practice. 

At  the  same  time  the  candid  citizen  must  con 
fess  that  if  the  policy  of  the  Government  upon 
the  vital  question  affecting  the  whole  people  is  to 
be  irrevocably  fixed  by  the  decisions  of  the  Su 
preme  Court,  the  instant  they  are  made,  as  in  ordi 
nary  litigation  between  parties  in  personal  actions, 
the  people  will  have  ceased  to  be  their  own  mas 
ters,  unless  having  to  that  extent  practically  re 
signed  their  Government  into  the  hands  of  that 
eminent  tribunal. 

Nor  is  there  in  this  view  any  assault  upon  the 
Court  or  the  Judges.  It  is  a  duty  from  which 
they  may  not  shrink,  to  decide  cases  properly 
brought  before  them;  and  it  is  no  fault  of  theirs 
if  others  seek  to  turn  their  decisions  to  political  pur 
poses.  One  section  of  our  country  believes  slavery 


46  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

is  right  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  the  other 
believes  it  is  wrong  and  ought  not  to  be  extended; 
and  this  is  the  only  substantial  dispute;  and  the 
fugitive  slave  clause  of  the  Constitution,  and  the 
law  for  the  suppression  of  the  foreign  slave-trade, 
are  each  as  well  enforced,  perhaps,  as  any  law  can 
ever  be  in  a  community  where  the  moral  sense  of 
the  people  imperfectly  supports  the  law  itself.  The 
great  body  of  the  people  abide  by  the  dry  legal 
obligation  in  both  cases,  and  a  few  break  over  in 
each.  This,  I  think,  cannot  be  perfectly  cured, 
and  it  would  be  worse  in  both  cases  after  the  sepa 
ration  of  the  sections  than  before.  The  foreign 
slave-trade,  now  imperfectly  suppressed,  would  be 
ultimately  revived,  without  restriction,  in  one  sec 
tion;  while  fugitive  slaves,  now  only  partially  sur 
rendered,  would  not  be  surrendered  at  all  by  the 
other. 

Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate;  we 
cannot  remove  our  respective  sections  from  each 
other,  nor  build  an  impassable  wall  between  them. 
A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go  out 
of  the  presence  and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other, 
but  the  different  parts  of  our  country  cannot  do 
this.  They  cannot  but  remain  face  to  face;  and 
intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile,  must  con 
tinue  between  them.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to  make 
that  intercourse  more  advantageous  or  more  satis 
factory  after  separation  than  before?  Can  aliens 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  47 

make  treaties  easier  than  friends  can  make  laws? 
Can  treaties  be  more  faithfully  enforced  between 
aliens  than  laws  can  among  friends?  Suppose  you 
go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always ;  and  when,  after 
much  loss  on  both  sides  and  no  gain  on  either,  you 
cease  fighting,  the  identical  questions  as  to  terms 
of  intercourse  are  again  upon  you. 

This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the 
geople  who  inhabit  it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow 
weary  of  the  existing  government,  they  can  exer- 
aise  their  constitutional  right  of  amending,  or  their 
revolutionary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow  it. 
I  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  many  worthy 
and  patriotic  citizens  are  desirous  of  having  the 
National  Constitution  amended.  While  I  make  no 
cecommendation  of  amendment,  I  fully  recognize 
full  authority  of  the  people  over  the  whole 
subject,  to  be  exercised  in  either  of  the  modes  pre 
scribed  in  the  instrument  itself,  and  I  should,  un 
der  existing  circumstances,  favor,  rather  than  op 
pose,  a  fair  opportunity  being  afforded  the  people 
to  act  upon  it. 

I  will  venture  to  add  that  to  me  the  convention 
mode  seems  preferable,  in  that  it  allows  amend 
ments  to  originate  with  the  people  themselves,  in 
stead  of  only  permitting  them  to  take  or  reject 
propositions  originated  by  others  not  especially 
chosen  for  the  purpose,  and  which  might  not  be 
precisely  such  as  they  would  wish  either  to  accept 


48  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

or  refuse.  I  understand  that  a  proposed  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  (which  amendment,  how 
ever,  I  have  not  seen)  has  passed  Congress,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Federal  Government  shall  never  in 
terfere  with  the  domestic  institutions  of  States,  in 
cluding  that  of  persons  held  to  service.  To  avoid 
misconstruction  of  what  I  have  said,  I  depart  from 
my  purpose  not  to  speak  of  particular  amendments, 
so  far  as  to  say  that,  holding  such  a  provision  to 
now  be  implied  constitutional  law,  I  have  no  ob 
jection  to  its  being  made  express  and  irrevocable. 

The  Chief  Magistrate  derives  all  his  authority 
from  the  people,  and  they  have  conferred  none 
upon  him  to  fix  the  terms  for  the  separation  of  the 
States.  The  people  themselves,  also,  can  do  this 
if  they  choose,  but  the  Executive,  as  such,  has  noth 
ing  to  do  with  it.  His  duty  is  to  administer  the 
present  government  as  it  came  to  his  hands,  and 
to  transmit  it  unimpaired  by  him  to  his  successor. 
Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in 
the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people?  Is  there  any 
better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world?  In  our  present 
differences  is  either  party  without  faith  of  being 
in  the  right?  If  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  nations, 
with  his  eternal  truth  and  justice,  be  on  your  side 
of  the  North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South,  that  truth 
and  that  justice  will  surely  prevail  by  the  judgment 
of  this  great  tribunal,  the  American  people.  By 
the  frame  of  the  Government  under  which  we  live, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  49 

this  same  people  have  wisely  given  their  public 
servants  but  little  power  for  mischief,  and  have 
with  equal  wisdom  provided  for  the  return  of  that 
little  to  their  own  hands  at  very  short  intervals. 
While  the  people  retain  their  virtue  and  vigilance, 
no  administration,  by  any  extreme  wickedness  or 
folly,  can  very  seriously  injure  the  Government  in 
the  short  space  of  four  years. 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and 
well  upon  this  whole  subject.  Nothing  valuable 
can  be  lost  by  taking  time. 

If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you,  in 
hot  haste,  to  a  step  which  you  would  never  take 
deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  tak 
ing  time;  but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated 
by  it. 

Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied  still  have  the 
old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and  on  the  sensitive 
point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it; 
while  the  new  administration  will  have  no  imme 
diate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change  either. 

If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatis 
fied  hold  the  right  side  in  the  dispute,  there  is  still 
no  single  reason  for  precipitate  action.  Intelli 
gence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance 
on  Him  wrho  has  never  yet  forsaken  this  favored 
land,  are  still  competent  to  adjust,  in  the  best  way, 
all  our  present  difficulties. 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-country- 


50  NOTED  SPEECHES 

men,  and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of 
civil  war.  The  Government  will  not  assail  you. 

You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  your 
selves  the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  regis 
tered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  Government,  while  I 
shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "  preserve,  pro 
tect,  and  defend  "  it. 

I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but 
friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  pas 
sion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break,  our 
bonds  of  affections. 

The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living 
heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will 
yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again 
touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels 
of  our  nature. 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  SPEECH 

AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CEME 
TERY  AT  GETTYSBURG,  PA.,  NOVEMBER  15, 
1863 

(FOURSCORE  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposi 
tion  that  all  men  are  created  equaft  Now  we  are 
engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedi 
cated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great 
battle-field  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate 
a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for 
those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this.  But  in  a  larger  sense  we 
cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot 
hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and 
dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far 
above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world 
will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say 
here;  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here. 
It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here 

51 


52  NOTED  SPEECHES 

to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather 
for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  re 
maining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that 
we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not 
Qiave  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  gov 
ernment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  eartftN 


LINCOLN'S  SECOND  INAUGURAL 
ADDRESS 

MARCH    4,    1865 

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: — At  this  second  ap 
pearing  to  take  the  oath  of  the  Presidential  of 
fice,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then  a  statement(some- 
what  in  detail  of  a  course  to  be  pursued) seemed 
very  fitting  and  proper.  Now/ at  the  expiration  of 
four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have 
been  constantly  called  forth  on(xevery  point  and 
phase)  of  the  great  contest  which  still  Absorbs  the 
attention  and  engrosses  the  energies]pf  the  nationXN 
little  that  is  new  could  be  presented. 

"The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all  else 
chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  gublic  as 
to  myself;  and  it  js,  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory 
and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the 
future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years 
ago,  all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an 
impending  civil  war.  J\]\  dreaded  it;  all  sought  to 
ayjpjd  it.  While  the  inaugural  address  was  being 

53 


54  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

delivered  from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to 
savm£jhe^LJrjoji  without  war,  insurgent  agents 
were  in  the  city  seeking  to  ejcstro^Jt  without  war 
— seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide  the 
effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties  deprecated 
war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than 
let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept 
war  rather  than  let  it  perish;  and  the  war  came. 

One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  col 
ored  slaves,  not_jd4Stributed  generally  over  the 
Union,  but  localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it. 
These  slaves  constituted  a  pecujiar^and  powerful 
interest.  All  knew  that  this  interest  was  somehow 
the  cause  of  the  war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate, 
and  extend  this  interest,  was  the  o^pct  for  which 
the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union  ej^en  by  war, 
while  the  Government  claimed  no  right  to  do  more 
than  to  restrict  trie  territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magni 
tude  or  the  duration  which  it  has  already  attained. 
Neither  anticipated  that  the  cajffi  of  the  conflict 
might  cease  W+&!  or  even  before,  the  conflict  it 
self  should  cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier 
triumph,  and  a  result  less  fundamental  and 
astounding.  \ 

Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same 
God,  and  each  invokes  his  aid  against  the  other. 
It  m_ay^seerr^  strange  that  any  men  should  dare  tc 
ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  55 

from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  bu£  let  us 
judge  not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayers 
of  both  could  not  be  answered.  That  of  neither 
has  been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  His 
own  purposes.  ;'  Woe  unto  the  world  because  of 
offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come; 
but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh." 
If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one 
of  these  offenses^  which, in  the  providence  of  Godj 
must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued 
through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to  re 
move,  and  that  Hej^ives  to  both  North  and  South 
this  terriBle  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom 
the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  de 
parture  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  be 
lievers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him? 
Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  soon  pafcs  away.  Yet, 
if  God  wijls  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until 
every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be 
paid  with  another  drawn  with  the  sword;  as  was 
said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be 
saidjt  "-The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether." 

With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are 


56  NOTED  SPEECHES 

in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for 
him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle^and  for  his 
widow  and  orphansr-to  do  all  which  may  achieve 
and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  our 
selves  and  with  all  nations, 


PROCLAMATION  OF  EMANCIPATION 

JANUARY    I,    1863 

WHEREAS,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  Septem 
ber,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation  was  issued 
by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  containing, 
among  other  things,  the  following,  to  wit: 

u  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State 
or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof 
shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever  free; 
and  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United 
States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority 
thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom 
of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  re 
press  such  persons  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts 
they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 

4  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of 
January  aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the 
States  and  parts  of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  peo 
ple  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion 

57 


58  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

against  the  United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any 
State,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that  day  be 
in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elec 
tions  wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of 
such  State  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be 
deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such  State,  and 
the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States." 

Now,  therefore,  I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power 
in  me  vested  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army 
and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  actual 
armed  rebellion  against  the  authority  and  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit  and  neces 
sary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion, 
do,  on  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three, 
and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do,  pub 
licly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred 
days  from  the  day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and 
designate,  as  the  States  and  parts  of  States  wherein 
the  people  thereof  respectively  are  this  day  in  re 
bellion  against  the  United  States,  the  following, 
to  wit: 

Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes 
of  St.  Bernard,  Plaquemines,  Jefferson,  St.  John, 
St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension,  Assumption, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  59 

Terre  Bonne,  Lafourche,  St.  Marie,  St.  Martin, 
and  Orleans,  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans), 
Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South 
Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except 
the  forty-eight  counties  designated  as  West  Vir 
ginia,  and  also  the  counties  of  Berkeley,  Accomac, 
Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess 
Anne,  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk 
and  Portsmouth),  and  which  excepted  parts  are 
for  the  present  left  precisely  as  if  this  proclama 
tion  were  not  issued. 

And,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  pur 
pose  aforesaid,  I  do  order  and  declare  that  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  States 
and  parts  of  States  are  and  henceforth  shall  be 
free;  and  that  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval 
authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  said  persons. 

And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared 
to  be  free,  to  abstain  from  all  violence,  unless  in 
necessary  self-defense;  and  I  recommend  to  them 
that  in  all  cases,  when  allowed,  they  labor  faith 
fully  for  reasonable  wages. 

And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that 
such  persons  of  suitable  condition  will  be  received 
into  the  armed  service  of  the  United  States,  to 
garrison  forts,  positions,  stations,  and  other  places, 
and  to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 


60  NOTED  SPEECHES 

And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an 
act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon 
military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judg 
ment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Al 
mighty  God. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my 
name,  and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to 
be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  first  day  of 
January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 

[  L.  s.  ]  three,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the 
United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

By  the  President :  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS 

BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 

STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS  was  born  at  Bran 
don,  Vermont,  on  the  236  of  April,  1813. 

When  a  child  he  lived  on  a  farm,  working  in 
the  fields  in  the  summer  and  attending  the  district 
school  during  the  winter  months.  At  the  age  oS 
fifteen  young  Douglas  realized  his  condition  in  life, 
— that  his  widowed  mother  was  not  in  circum 
stances  to  give  him  an  education,  so  he  suppressed 
his  ambition  for  college  for  the  time,  and  appren 
ticed  himself  to  a  cabinet-maker  in  Middlebury. 
Here  he  worked  with  enthusiasm  for  two  years. 
The  following  year  he  spent  in  Brandon,  his  na 
tive  town,  attending  the  academy.  At  the  close 
of  that  year  he  moved  with  his  mother  to  Canan- 
daigua,  N.  Y.,  at  once  becoming  a  student  at  the 
fine  academy  located  there.  He  remained  in 
Canandaigua  three  years,  applying  himself  dili 
gently  to  his  academic  studies,  also  finding  time 
to  follow  a  course  in  the  study  of  law. 

In  1833  tne  young  man  of  twenty-three  years 
removed  to  Winchester,  111.,  to  earn  for  himself  a 

61 


62  NOTED  SPEECHES 

livelihood.  For  a  few  months  he  taught  school 
and  continued  his  law  studies.  The  next  year  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Jacksonville,  where  he 
had  stopped  for  a  short  time,  before  reaching 
Winchester. 

Mr.  Douglas  was  elected  State's  Attorney  of 
the  First  Judicial  District  in  1835.  ^n  ^36  he 
was  elected  to  the  Illinois  legislature.  The  fol 
lowing  year  he  was  appointed  Register  of  Public 
Lands  at  Springfield,  to  which  place  he  removed. 
In  1841  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State;  but 
soon  resigned,  to  accept  the  office  of  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  In  1843  Mr-  Douglas 
was  elected  to  Congress,  where  he  served  for  two 
terms;  he  was  re-elected  to  the  House  for  the 
third  term,  but  at  the  following  session  of  the 
legislature,  December,  1846,  he  was  chosen  for 
the  United  States  Senate,  of  which  he  remained 
a  member  until  his  death. 

Senator  Douglas  died  on  the  3d  of  June,  1861. 


STEPHEN    A.    DOUGLAS 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

FIRST    JOINT    DEBATE,    DELIVERED    AT    OTTAWA, 
ILL.,   AUGUST  21,    1858 

Douglas's  Opening  Speech 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: — I  appear  before 
you  to-day  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  lead 
ing  political  topics  which  now  agitate  the  public 
mind.  By  an  arrangement  between  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  myself,  we  are  present  here  to-day  for  the 
purpose  of  having  a  joint  discussion,  as  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  two  great  political  parties  of  the 
State  and  Union,  upon  the  principles  in  issue  be 
tween  those  parties;  and  this  vast  concourse  of 
people  shows  the  deep  feeling  which  pervades 
the  public  mind  in  regard  to  the  questions  divid 
ing  us. 

Prior  to  1854,  this  country  was  divided  into  two 
great  political  parties,  known  as  the  Whig  and 
Democratic  parties.  Both  were  national  and  pa 
triotic,  advocating  principles  that  were  universal 
in  their  application.  An  old-line  Whig  could  pro 
claim  his  principles  in  Louisiana  and  Massachu- 

63 


64  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

setts  alike.  Whig  principles  had  no  boundary  sec 
tional  line;  they  were  not  limited  by  the  Ohio  river, 
nor  by  the  Potomac,  nor  by  the  line  of  the  free  and 
slave  States,  but  applied  and  were  proclaimed 
wherever  the  Constitution  ruled  or  the  American 
flag  waved  over  the  American  soil.  So  it  was  and 
so  it  is  with  the  great  Democratic  party,  which 
from  the  days  of  Jefferson  until  this  period  has 
proven  itself  to  be  the  historic  party  of  this  nation. 
While  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  differed  in 
regard  to  a  bank,  the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie 
circular,  and  the  sub-treasury,  they  agreed  on  the 
great  slavery  question  which  now  agitates  the 
Union.  I  say  that  the  Whig  party  and  the  Demo 
cratic  party  agreed  on  the  slavery  question,  while 
they  differed  on  those  matters  of  expediency  to 
which  I  have  referred.  The  Whig  party  and  the 
Democratic  party  jointly  adopted  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850  as  the  basis  of  a  proper  and  just 
solution  of  the  slavery  question  in  all  its  forms. 
Clay  was  the  great  leader,  with  Webster  on  his 
right  and  Cass  on  his  left  and  sustained  by  the  pa 
triots  in  the  Whig  and  Democratic  ranks,  who  had 
devised  and  enacted  the  compromise  measures  of 
1850. 

During  the  session  of  Congress  of  1853-54,  I 
introduced  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  a 
bill  to  organize  the  Territories  of  Kansas  and  Ne- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  65 

braska  on  that  principle  which  had  been  adopted 
in  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  approved  by 
the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  in  Illi 
nois  in  1851,  and  indorsed  by  the  Whig  party  and 
the  Democratic  party  in  national  convention  in 
1852.  In  order  that  there  might  be  no  misunder 
standing  in  relation  to  the  principle  involved  in 
the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  I  put  forth  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  the  act  in  these  words :  "  It 
is  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to 
legislate  slavery  into  any  State  or  Territory,  or  to 
exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only 
to  the  Federal  Constitution."  Thus  you  see  that 
up  to  1854,  when  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill 
was  brought  into  Congress  for  the  purpose  of  car 
rying  out  the  principles  which  both  parties  had  up 
to  that  time  indorsed  and  approved,  there  had 
been  no  division  in  this  country  in  regard  to 
that  principle,  except  the  opposition  of  the  Abo 
litionists.  .  .  . 

In  1854  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Lyman 
Trumbull  entered  into  an  arrangement,  one  with 
the  other,  and  each  with  his  respective  friends,  to 
dissolve  the  old  Whig  party  on  the  one  hand,  and 
to  dissolve  the  old  Democratic  party  on  the  other, 
and  to  connect  the  members  of  both  into  an  Abo 
lition  party,  under  the  name  and  disguise  of  a  Re- 


66  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

publican  party.  The  terms  of  that  arrangement  be 
tween  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  have  been  published 
by  Lincoln's  special  friend,  James  H.  Matheny, 
Esq. ;  and  they  were  that  Lincoln  should  have 
General  Shields'  place  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
which  was  then  about  to  become  vacant,  and  that 
Trumbull  should  have  my  seat  when  my  term  ex 
pired.  Lincoln  went  to  work  to  Abolitionize  the 
old  Whig  party  all  over  the  State,  pretending  that 
he  was  then  as  good  a  Whig  as  ever;  and  Trum 
bull  went  to  work  in  his  part  of  the  State  preach 
ing  Abolitionism  in  its  milder  and  lighter  form,  and 
trying  to  Abolitionize  the  Democratic  party  and 
bring  old  Democrats  handcuffed  and  bound  hand 
and  foot  into  the  Abolition  camp.  In  pursuance 
of  the  arrangement,  the  parties  met  at  Springfield 
in  October,  1854,  and  proclaimed  their  new  plat 
form.  Lincoln  was  to  bring  into  the  Abolition 
camp  the  old-line  Whigs  and  transfer  them  over 
to  Giddings,  Chase,  Fred  Douglass,  and  Parson 
Lovejoy,  who  were  ready  to  receive  them  and 
christen  them  in  their  new  faith.  They  laid  down 
on  that  occasion  a  platform  for  their  new  Republi 
can  party,  which  was  thus  to  be  constructed.  I 
have  the  resolutions  of  the  State  convention  then 
held,  which  was  the  first  mass  State  convention  ever 
held  in  Illinois  by  the  Black  Republican  party;  and 
I  now  hold  them  in  my  hands  and  will  read  a  part 
of  them,  and  cause  the  others  to  be  printed.  Here 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  67 

are  the  most  important  and  material  resolutions  of 
this  Abolition  platform: — 

Resolved,  "  That  we  believe  this  truth  to  be  self- 
evident,  that  when  parties  become  subversive  of  the 
ends  for  which  they  are  established,  or  incapable 
of  restoring  the  government  to  the  true  principles 
of  the  Constitution,  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  the 
people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  by  which 
they  may  have  been  connected  therewith,  and  to 
organize  new  parties  upon  such  principles  and  with 
such  views  as  the  circumstances  and  exigencies  of 
the  nation  may  demand. 

Resohed,  "  That  the  times  imperatively  demand 
the  reorganization  of  parties,  and,  repudiating  all 
previous  party  attachments,  names,  and  predilec 
tions,  we  unite  ourselves  together  in  defense  of  the 
liberty  and  Constitution  of  the  country,  and  will 
hereafter  co-operate  as  the  Republican  party, 
pledged  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  following 
purposes :  to  bring  the  administration  of  the  gov 
ernment  back  to  the  control  of  first  principles;  to 
restore  Nebraska  and  Kansas  to  the  position  of 
free  Territories;  that,  as  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  vests  in  the  States  and  not  in  Con 
gress  the  power  to  legislate  for  the  extradition  of 
fugitives  from  labor,  to  repeal  and  entirely  abro 
gate  the  fugitive-slave  law;  to  restrict  slavery  to 
those  States  in  which  it  exists;  to  prohibit  the  ad- 


68  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

mission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union; 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  to 
exclude  slavery  from  all  the  Territories  over  which 
the  general  government  has  exclusive  jurisdiction; 
and  to  resist  the  acquirement  of  any  more  Terri 
tories  unless  the  practice  of  slavery  therein  for 
ever  shall  have  been  prohibited. 

Resolved,  "  That  in  furtherance  of  these  princi 
ples  we  will  use  such  constitutional  and  lawful 
means  as  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accom 
plishment,  and  that  we  will  support  no  man  for 
office,  under  the  general  or  State  government,  who 
is  not  positively  and  fully  committed  to  the  support 
of  these  principles,  and  whose  personal  character 
and  conduct  is  not  a  guarantee  that  he  is  reliable, 
and  who  shall  not  have  abjured  old  party  al 
legiance  and  ties." 

Now,  gentlemen,  your  Black  Republicans  have 
cheered  every  one  of  those  propositions,  and  yet  I 
venture  to  say  that  you  cannot  get  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
come  out  and  say  that  he  is  now  in  favor  of  each 
one  of  them.  That  these  propositions,  one  and  all, 
constitute  the  platform  of  the  Black  Republican 
party  of  this  day,  I  have  no  doubt;  and  when  you 
were  not  aware  for  what  purpose  I  was  reading 
them,  your  Black  Republicans  cheered  them  as  good 
Black  Republican  doctrines. 

My  object  in  reading  these  resolutions  was  to 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  69 

put  the  question  to  Abraham  Lincoln  this  day, 
whether  he  now  stands  and  will  stand  by  each 
article  in  that  creed,  and  carry  it  out.  X^i]  I  de 
sire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  to-day  stands 
as  he  did  in  i8£4>  in  favor  of  the  unconditional 
repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  [2]  I  desire  him 
to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged  to-day,  as 
he  did  in  1854,  against  the  admission  of  any  more 
slave  States  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people 
want  them.  [3]  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  new  State  into 
the  Union  with  such  a  constitution  as  the  people 
of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make.  [4]  I  want  to 
know  whether  he  stands  to-day  pledged  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
[5]  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  be 
tween  the  different  States.  [6]  I  desire  to  know 
whether  he  stands  pledged  to  prohibit  slavery  in 
all  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  north  as 
well  as  south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line. 
[7]  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is  opposed 
to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  territory  unless 
slavery  is  prohibited  therein.  I  want  his  answer 
to  these  questions.  Your  affirmative  cheers  in 
favor  of  this  Abolition  platform  are  not  satisfac 
tory.  I  ask  Abraham  Lincoln  to  answer  these 
questions,  in  order  that,  when  I  trot  him  down  to 
lower  Egypt  [Southernmost  Illinois]  I  may  put 


70  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

the  same  questions  to  him.  My  principles  are  the 
same  everywhere.  I  can  proclaim  them  alike  in 
the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  and  the  West. 
My  principles  will  apply  wherever  the  Constitu 
tion  prevails  and  the  American  flag  waves.  I  de 
sire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln's  principles  will 
bear  transplanting  from  Ottawa  to  Jonesboro?  I 
put  these  questions  to  him  to-day  distinctly,  and 
ask  an  answer.  I  have  a  right  to  an  answer;  for 
I  quote  from  the  platform  of  the  Republican 
party,  made  by  himself  and  others  at  the  time  that 
party  was  formed,  and  the  bargain  made  by  Lin 
coln  to  dissolve  and  kill  the  old  Whig  party  and 
transfer  its  members,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to 
the  Abolition  party  undej*  the  direction  of  Gid- 
dings  and  Fred  Douglas^ 

In  the  remarks  I  ha<re  made  on  this  platform, 
and  the  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  it,  I  mean 
nothing  personally  disrespectful  or  unkind  to  that 
gentleman.  I  have  known  him  for  nearly  twenty- 
five  years.  There  were  many  points  of  sympathy 
between  us  when  we  first  got  acquainted.  We 
were  both  comparatively  boys,  and  both  strug 
gling  with  poverty  in  a  strange  land.  I  was  a 
school-teacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester,  and  he 
a  flourishing  grocery-keeper  in  the  town  of  Salem. 
He  was  more  successful  in  his  occupation  than  I 
was  in  mine,  and  hence  more  fortunate  in  this 
world's  goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  peculiar 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  71 

men  who  perform  with  admirable  skill  everything 
which  they  undertake.  I  made  as  good  a  school 
teacher  as  I  could,  and,  when  a  cabinet-maker,  I 
made  a  good  bedstead  and  tables,  although  my  old 
boss  said  I  succeeded  better  with  bureaus  and  sec 
retaries  than  with  anything  else^mt  I  believe  that 
Lincoln  was  always  more  successful  in  business 
than  I,  for  his  business  enabled  him  to  get  into 
the  legislature.  I  met  him  there,  however,  and 
had  sympathy  with  him,  because  of  the  up-hill 
struggle  we  both  had  in  life.  He  was  then  just 
as  good  at  telling  an  anecdote  as  now.  He  could 
beat  any  of  the  boys  wrestling  or  running  a  foot 
race,  in  pitching  quoits  or  tossing  a  copper;  could 
ruin  more  liquor  than  all  the  boys  together;  and 
the  dignity  and  impartiality  with  which  he  pre 
sided  at  a  horse-race  or  fist-fight  excited  the  ad 
miration  and  won  the  praise  of  everybody  that 
was  present  and  participated.  I  sympathized 
with  him  because  he  was  struggling  with  difficul 
ties,  and  so  was  I.  Mr.  Lincoln  served  with  me 
in  the  legislature  in  1836,  when  we  both  retired; 
and  he  subsided  or  became  submerged,  and  he  was 
lost  sight  of  as  a  public  man  for  some  yeai*.  In 
1846,  when  Wilmot  introduced  his  celebrated 
proviso,  and  the  Abolition  tornado  swept  over  the 
country,  Lincoln  again  turned  up  as  a  member  of 
Congress  from  the  Sangamon  district.  I  was  then 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was  glad 


72  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

to  welcome  my  old  friend  and  companion.  Whilst 
in  Congress,  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  op 
position  to  the  Mexican  War,  taking  the  side  of 
the  common  enemy  against  his  own  country;  and 
when  he  returned  home  he  found  that  the  indigna 
tion  of  the  people  followed  him  everywhere,  and 
he  was  again  submerged  or  obliged  to  retire  into 
private  life,  forgotten  by  his  former  friends.  He 
came  up  again  in  1854,  just  in  time  to  make  this 
Abolition  or  Black  Republican  platform, — in  com 
pany  with  Giddings,  Lovejoy,  Chase,  and  Fred 
Douglass, — for  the  Republican  party  to  stand 
upon. 

Having  formed  this  new  party  for  the  benefit 
of  deserters  from  Whiggery  and  deserters  from 
Democracy,  and  having  laid  down  the  Abolition 
platform  which  I  have  read,  Lincoln  now  takes 
his  stand  and  proclaims  his  Abolition  doctrines. 
Let  me  read  a  part  of  them.  In  rus  speech  at 
Springfield  tn  the  Convention  which  nominatecTrTi m 
forthe  Senate  he  said: 

r^^ln  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis 
[shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  4  A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'  I  believe  this 
government  cannot  endure  permanently  half-slave 
and  half-free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be 
dissolved, — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,— 
but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  73 

.become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.     Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
.of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall 
trest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ulti 
mate    extinction,    or    its    advocates    will    push    it 
•forward    till    it    shall    become    alike    lawful    in 
•  all    the    States, — old    as    well     as    new,     North 
well    as    South."       ["  Good,"    "Good,"    and 
cheers.] 

I  am  delighted  to  hear  you  Black  Republicans 
say,  "  Good."  I  have  no  doubt  that  doctrine  ex 
presses  your  sentiments;  and  I  will  prove  to  you 
now,  if  you  will  listen  to  me,  that  it  is  revolution 
ary  and  destructive  of  the  existence  of  this  govern 
ment.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  extract  from  which  I 
have  read,  says  that  this  government  cannot  en 
dure  permanently  in  the  same  condition  in  which 
it  was  made  by  its  framers — divided  into  free  and 
slave  States.  He  says  that  it  has  existed  for  about 
seventy  years  thus  divided,  and  yet  he  tells  you 
that  it  cannot  endure  permanently  on  the  same 
principles  and  in  the  same  relative  condition  in 
which  our  fathers  made  it.  Why  can  it  not  exist 
divided  into  free  and  slave  States?  Washington, 
Jefferson,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  Jay,  and 
the  great  men  of  that  day  made  this  government 
divided  into  free  States  and  slave  States,  and  left 
each  State  perfectly  free  to  do  as  it  pleased  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  Why  can  it  not  exist  on 


74  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

the  same  principles  on  which  our  fathers  made  it? 
They  knew  when  they  framed  the  Constitution 
that  in  a  country  as  wide  and  broad  as  this,  with 
such  a  variety  of  climate,  production,  and  interest, 
the  people  necessarily  required  different  laws  and 
institutions  in  different  localities.  They  knew  that 
the  laws  and  regulations  which  would  suit  the 
granite  hills  of  New  Hampshire  would  be  un- 
suited  to  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina; 
and  they  therefore  provided  that  each  State  should 
retain  its  own  legislature  and  its  own  sovereignty, 
with  the  full  and  complete  power  to  do  as 
it  pleased  within  its  own  limits,  in  all  that  was 
local  and  not  national.  One  of  the  reserved  rights 
of  the  States  was  the  right  to  regulate  the  relations 
between  master  and  servant,  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion.  At  the  time  the  Constitution  was  framed 
there  were  thirteen  States  in  the  Union,  twelve 
of  which  were  slaveholding  States  and  one  a  free 
State.  Suppose  this  doctrine  of  uniformity 
preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  the  States  should 
all  be  free  or  all  be  slave,  had  prevailed;  and 
what  would  have  been  the  result?  Of  course, 
the  twelve  slaveholding  States  would  have  over 
ruled  the  one  free  State;  and  slavery  would  have 
been  fastened  by  a  constitutional  provision  on 
every  inch  of  the  American  republic,  instead  of 
being  left,  as  our  fathers  wisely  left  it,  to  each 
State  to  decide  for  itself.  Here  I  assert  that  uni- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  75 

formity  in  the  local  laws  and  institutions  of  the 
different  States  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable. 
If  uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  govern 
ment  was  established,  it  must  inevitably  have  been 
the  uniformity  of  slavery  everywhere,  or  else  the 
uniformity  of  negro  citizenship  and  negro  equality 
everywhere. 

We  are  told  by  Lincoln  that  he  is  utterly  op 
posed  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  will  not  sub 
mit  to  it,  for  the  reason  that  he  says  it  deprives 
the  negjTopf  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizen 
ship,  ^cnat  is  the  first  and  main  reason  which  he 
assigns  for  his  warfare  on  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  and  its  decision^f^ask  you,  Are 
you  in  favor  of  conferring  upon  the  negro  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship?  Do  you  de 
sire  to  strike  out  of  our  State  constitution  that 
clause  which  keeps  slaves  and  free  negroes  out  of 
the  State,  and  allow  the  free  negroes  to  flow  in, 
and  cover  your  prairies  with  black  settlements? 
Do  you  desire  to  turn  this  beautiful  State  into  a 
free  negro  colony,  in  order  that  when  Missouri 
abolishes  slavery  she  can  send  one  hundred  thou 
sand  emancipated  slaves  into  Illinois,  to  become 
citizens  and  voters,  on  an  equality  with  yourselves? 
If  you  desire  negro  citizenship,  if  you  desire  to 
allow  them  to  come  into  the  State  and  settle  with 
the  white  man,  if  you  desire  them  to  vote  on  an 
equality  with  yourselves,  and  to  make  them  eligible 


76  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

to  office,  to  serve  on  juries,  and  to  adjudge  your 
rights,  then  support  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Black 
Republican  party,  who  are  in  favor  of  the  citizen 
ship  of  the  negro.  For  one,  I  am  opposed  to 
negro  citizenship  in  any  and  every  form.  I  be 
lieve  this  government  was  made  on  the  white  basis. 
I  believe  it  was  made  by  white  men,  for  the  benefit 
of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever;  and  I 
am  in  favor  of  confining  citizenship  to  white  men, 
men  of  European  birth  and  descent,  instead  of  con 
ferring  it  upon  negroes,  Indians,  and  other  inferior 


errng 
races^r 
mr.  Li 


Lincoln,  following  the  example  and  lead 
of  all  the  little  Abolition  orators  who  go  around 
and  lecture  in  the  basements  of  schools  and 
churches,  reads  from  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  and  then 
asks,  How  can  you  deprive  a  negro  of  that  equality 
which  God  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
award  to  him?  He  and  they  maintain  that  negro 
equality  is  guaranteed  by  the  laws  of  God,  and 
that  it  is  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence.  If  they  think  so,  of  course  they  have  a  right 
to  say  so,  and  so  vote.  I  do  not  question  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  conscientious  belief  that  the  negro  was  made 
his  equal,  and  hence  is  his  brother;  but,  for  my 
own  part,  I  do  not  regard  the  negro  as  my  equal, 
and  positively  deny  that  he  is  my  brother  or  any 
kin  to  me  whatever.  I  do  not  believe  that 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  77 

the  Almighty  ever  intended  the  negro  to  be  the 
equal  of  the  white  man.  If  he  did,  he  has  been 
a  long  time  demonstrating  the  fact.  For  thou 
sands  of  years  the  negro  has  been  a  race  upon 
the  earth;  and  during  all  that  time,  in  all  latitudes 
and  climates,  wherever  he  has  wandered  or  been 
taken,  he  has  been  inferior  to  the  race  which  he 
has  there  met.  He  belongs  to  an  inferior  race, 
and  must  always  occupy  an  inferior  position.  I 
do  not  hold  that,  because  the  negro  is  our  inferior, 
therefore  he  ought  to  be  a  slave.  By  no  means  can 
such  a  conclusion  be  drawn  from  what  I  have  said. 
On  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  humanity  and  Chris 
tianity  both  require  that  the  negro  shall  have  and 
enjoy  every  right,  every  privilege,  and  every  im 
munity  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives.  On  that  point,  I  presume,  there 
can  be  no  diversity  of  opinion.  You  and  I  are 
bound  to  extend  to  our  inferior  and  dependent 
beings  every  right,  every  privilege,  every  facility 
and  immunity  consistent  with  the  public  good. 
The  question  then  arises,  What  rights  and  privi 
leges  are  consistent  with  the  public  good?  This 
is  a  question  which  each  State  and  each  Territory 
must  decide  for  itself.  Illinois  has  decided  it  for 
herself.  We  have  provided  that  the  negro  shall 
not  be  a  slave;  and  we  have  also  provided  that 
he  shall  not  be  a  citizen,  but  protect  him  in  his 
civil  rights,  in  his  life,  his  person,  and  his  prop- 


78  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

erty,  only  depriving  him  of  all  political  rights 
whatsoever  and  refusing  to  put  him  on  an  equality 
with  the  white  man.  That  policy  of  Illinois  is 
satisfactory  to  the  Democratic  party  and  to  me, 
and  if  it  were  to  the  Republicans  there  would  then 
be  no  question  upon  the  subject;  but  the  Republi 
cans  say  that  he  ought  to  be  made  a  citizen,  and 
when  he  becomes  a  citizen  he  becomes  your  equal, 
with  all  your  rights  and  privileges.  They  assert 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  be  monstrous  because 
it  denies  that  the  negro  is  or  can  be  a  citizen  under 
the  Constitution. 

Now,  I  hold  that  Illinois  had  a  right  to  abolish 
and  prohibit  slavery  as  she  did,  and  I  hold  that 
Kentucky  has  the  same  right  to  continue  and  pro 
tect  slavery  that  Illinois  had  to  abolish  it.  I  hold 
that  New  York  had  as  much  right  to  abolish  slav 
ery  as  Virginia  has  to  continue  it,  and  that  each 
and  every  State  of  this  Union  is  a  sovereign  power, 
with  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  upon  this  ques 
tion  of  slavery  and  upon  all  its  domestic  institu 
tions.  Slavery  is  not  the  only  question  which  comes 
up  in  this  controversy.  There  is  a  far  more  im 
portant  one  to  you,  and  that  is,  What  shall  be  done 
with  the  free  negro?  ...  In  relation  to  the  pol 
icy  to  be  pursued  toward  the  free  negroes,  we  have 
said  that  they  shall  not  vote;  whilst  Maine,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  said  that  they  shall  vote. 
Maine  is  a  sovereign  State,  and  has  the  power  to 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  79 

regulate  the  qualifications  of  voters  within  her  lim 
its.  I  would  never  consent  to  confer  the  right  of 
voting  and  of  citizenship  upon  a  negro,  but  still 
I  am  not  going  to  quarrel  with  Maine  for  differ 
ing  from  me  in  opinion.  Let  Maine  take  care  of 
her  own  negroes,  and  fix  the  qualifications  of  her 
own  voters  to  suit  herself,  without  interfering  with 
Illinois;  and  Illinois  will  not  interfere  with  Maine. 
So  with  the  State  of  New  York.  She  allows  the 
negro  to  vote  provided  he  owns  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars'  worth  of  property,  but  not  otherwise. 
While  I  would  not  make  any  distinction  whatever 
between  a  negro  who  held  property  and  one  who 
did  not,  yet  if  the  sovereign  State  of  New  York 
chooses  to  make  that  distinction  it  is  her  business, 
and  not  mine;  and  I  will  not  quarrel  with  her  for 
it.  She  can  do  as  she  pleases  on  this  question  if  she 
minds  her  own  business,  and  we  will  do  the  same 
thing.  Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will  only  act  con 
scientiously  and  rigidly  upon  this  great  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty,  which  guarantees  to  each 
State  and  Territory  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases 
on  all  things  local  and  domestic  instead  of  Con 
gress  interfering,  wre  will  continue  at  peace  one 
with  another.  Why  should  Illinois  be  at  war  with 
Missouri,  or  Kentucky  with  Ohio,  or  Virginia  with 
New  York,  merely  because  their  institutions  differ? 
Our  fathers  intended  that  our  institutions  should 
differ.  They  knew  that  the  North  and  the  South, 


8o  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

having  different  climates,  productions,  and  inter 
ests,  required  different  institutions.  This  doctrine 
of  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  uniformity  among  the  institu- 
tons  of  the  different  States,  is  a  new  doctrine  never 
dreamed  of  by  Washington,  Madison,  or  the  fram- 
ers  of  this  government.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the 
Republican  party  set  themselves  up  as  wiser  than 
these  men  who  made  this  government,  which  has 
flourished  for  seventy  years  under  the  principle  of 
popular  sovereignty,  recognizing  the  right  of  each 
State  to  do  as  it  pleased.  Under  that  principle, 
we  have  grown  from  a  nation  of  three  or  four 
millions  to  a  nation  of  about  thirty  millions  of 
people.  We  have  crossed  the  Alleghany  moun 
tains  and  filled  up  the  whole  Northwest,  turning 
the  prairie  into  a  garden,  and  building  up  churches 
and  schools,  thus  spreading  civilization  and  Chris 
tianity  where  before  there  was  nothing  but  savage 
barbarism.  Under  that  principle  we  have  become, 
from  a  feeble  nation,  the  most  powerful  on  the 
face  of  the  earth;  and,  if  we  only  adhere  to  that 
principle,  we  can  go  forward  increasing  in  terri 
tory,  in  power,  in  strength,  and  in  glory  until  the 
Republic  of  America  shall  be  the  north  star  that 
shall  guide  the  friends  of  freedom  throughout  the 
civilized  world.  And  why  can  we  not  adhere  to 
the  great  principle  of  self-government  upon  which 
our  institutions  were  originally  based?  I  believe 
that  this  new  doctrine  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  81 

and  his  party  will  dissolve  the  Union  if  it  suc 
ceeds.  They  are  trying  to  array  all  the  Northern 
States  in  one  body  against  the  South,  to  excite  a 
sectional  war  between  the  Free  States  and  the 
Slave  States,  in  order  that  the  one  or  the  other  may 
be  driven  to  the  wall. 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

FIRST    JOINT    DEBATE,     DELIVERED    AT    OTTAWA, 
ILL.,  AUGUST  21,    1858 

Lincoln's  Reply 

MY  FELLOW-CITIZENS: — When  a  man  hears 
himself  somewhat  misrepresented,  it  provokes  him, 
— at  least  I  find  it  so  with  myself;  but  when  mis 
representation  becomes  very  gross  and  palpable  it 
is  more  apt  to  amuse  him.  The  first  thing  I  see 
fit  to  notice  is  the  fact 'that  Judge  Douglas  alleges, 
after  running  through  the  history  of  the  old  Demo 
cratic  and  the  old  Whig  parties,  that  Judge  Trum- 
bull  and  myself  made  an  arrangement  in  1854  by 
which  I  was  to  have  the  place  of  General  Shields 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  Judge  Trumbull 
was  to  have  the  place  of  Judge  Douglas.  Now 
all  I  have  to  say  upon  that  subject  is  that  I  think 
no  man — not  even  Judge  Douglas — can  prove  it, 
because  it  is  not  true.  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  "  con 
scientious  "  in  saying  it.  As  to  those  resolutions 
that  he  took  such  a  length  of  time  to  read,  as  be 
ing  the  platform  of  the  Republican  party  in  1854, 

82 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  83 

I  say  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with  them;  and 
I  think  Trumbull  never  had.  Judge  Douglas  can 
not  show  that  either  of  us  ever  did  have  anything 
to  do  with  them.  I  believe  this  is  true  about  those 
resolutions :  There  was  a  call  for  a  convention  to 
form  a  Republican  party  at  Springfield;  and  I  think 
that  my  friend,  Mr.  Lovejoy,  who  is  here  upon 
this  stand,  had  a  hand  in  it.  I  think  this  is  true; 
and  I  think,  if  he  will  remember  accurately,  he 
will  be  able  to  recollect  that  he  tried  to  get  me 
into  it  and  I  would  not  go  in.  I  believe  it  is  also 
true  that  I  went  away  from  Springfield,  when  the 
convention  was  in  session,  to  attend  court  in  Taze- 
well  County.  It  is  true  they  did  place  my  name, 
though  without  authority,  upon  the  committee,  and 
afterward  wrote  me  to  attend  the  meeting  of  the 
committee;  but  I  refused  to  do  so,  and  I  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  that  organization.  This 
is  the  plain  truth  about  all  that  matter  of  the 
resolutions. 

Now,  about  this  story  that  Judge  Douglas  tells 
of  Trumbull  bargaining  to  sell  out  the  old  Demo 
cratic  party,  and  Lincoln  agreeing  to  sell  out  the 
old  Whig  party,  I  have  the  means  of  knowing 
about  that;  Judge  Douglas  cannot  have;  and  I 
know  there  is  no  substance  to  it  whatever.  Yet 
I  have  no  doubt  he  is  "  conscientious  "  about  it. 
I  know  that  after  Mr.  Lovejoy  got  into  the  legis 
lature  that  winter  he  complained  to  me  that  I  had 


84  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

told  all  the  ofd  Whigs  of  his  district  that  the  old 
Whig  party  was  good  enough  for  them,  and  some 
of  them  voted  against  him  because  I  told  them  so. 
Now,  I  have  no  means  of  totally  disproving  such 
charges  as  this  which  the  Judge  makes.  A  man 
cannot  prove  a  negative;  but  he  has  a  right  to 
claim  that,  when  a  man  makes  an  affirmative 
charge,  he  must  offer  some  proof  to  show  the  truth 
of  what  he  says.  I  certainly  cannot  introduce  tes 
timony  to  show  the  negative  about  things;  but  I 
have  a  right  to  claim  that,  if  a  man  says  he  knows 
a  thing,  then  he  must  show  how  he  knows  it.  I 
always  have  a  right  to  claim  this,  and  it  is  not 
satisfactory  to  me  that  he  may  be  "  conscientious  " 
on  the  subject. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  hate  to  waste  my  time  on 
such  things,  but  in  regard  to  that  general  Abolition 
tilt  that  Judge  Douglas  makes  when  he  says  that 
I  was  engaged  at  that  time  in  selling  out  and 
Abolitionizing  the  old  Whig  party,  I  hope  you  will 
permit  me  to  read  a  part  of  a  printed  speech  that 
I  made  then  at  Peoria,  which  will  show  altogether 
a  different  view  of  the  position  I  took  in  that  con 
test  of  1854.  \Vo\ce:  "Put  on  your  specs."] 
Yes,  sir,  I  am  obliged  to  do  so;  I  am  no  longer 
a  young  man : 

"  This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise.  The  foregoing  history  may  not  be  precisely 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  85 

accurate  in  every  particular;  but  I  am  sure  it  is 
sufficiently  so  for  all  the  uses  I  shall  attempt  to 
make  of  it,  and  in  it  we  have  before  us  the  chief 
materials  enabling  us  to  correctly  judge  whether 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  right  or 
wrong. 

"  I  think,  and  shall  try  to  show,  that  it  is  wrong, 
— wrong  in  its  direct  effect,  letting  slavery  into 
Kansas  and  Nebraska, — and  wrong  in  its  pro 
spective  principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to  every 
other  part  of  the  wide  world  where  men  can  be 
found  inclined  to  take  it. 

"  This  declared  indifference,  but  as  I  must  think 
covert  real  zeal  for  the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot 
but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the  monstrous  in 
justice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it  de 
prives  our  republican  example  of  its  just  influence 
in  the  world;  enables  the  enemies  of  free  institu 
tions,  with  plausibility,  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites; 
causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our 
sincerity,  and  especially  because  it  forces  so  many 
really  good  men  amongst  ourselves  into  an  open 
war  with  the  very  fundamental  principles  of  civil 
liberty, — criticising  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right  principle 
of  action  but  self -interest. 

"  Before  proceeding,  let  me  say  I  think  I  have 
no  prejudice  against  the  Southern  people.  They 
are  just  what  we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If 


86  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

slavery  did  not  now  exist  among  them,  they  would 
not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now  exist  among  us, 
we  should  not  instantly  give  it  up.  This  I  be 
lieve  of  the  masses  North  and  South.  Doubtless 
there  are  individuals  on  both  sides  who  would  not 
hold  slaves  under  any  circumstances;  and  others 
who  would  gladly  introduce  slavery  anew,  if  it 
were  out  of  existence.  We  know  that  some  South 
ern  men  do  free  their  slaves,  go  North,  and  be 
come  tip-top  Abolitionists;  while  some  Northern 
ones  go  South,  and  become  most  cruel  slavemasters. 
"  When  Southern  people  tell  us  they  are  no  more 
responsible  for  the  origin  of  slavery  than  we,  I 
acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is  said  that  the 
institution  exists,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to 
get  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  I  can  under 
stand  and  appreciate  the  saying.  I  surely  will  not 
blame  them  for  not  doing  what  I  should  not  know 
how  to  do  myself.  If  all  earthly  power  were 
given  me,  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  as  to 
the  existing  institution.  My  first  impulse  would 
be  to  free  all  the  slaves,  and  send  them  to  Liberia, 
• — to  their  own  native  land.  But  a  moment's  re 
flection  would  convince  me  that,  whatever  of  high 
hope  (as  I  think  there  is)  there  may  be  in  this  in 
the  long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impossible.  If 
they  were  all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would 
all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days;  and  there  are  not 
surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  in  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  87 

world  to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days/ 
What  then?  Free  them  all,  and  keep  them  among 
us  as  underlings?  Is  it  quite  certain  that  this  bet 
ters  their  condition?  ^l_  think  I  would  not  hold 
one  in  slavery,  at  any  rate;  yet  the  point  is  not 
clear  enough  to  me  to  denounce  people  upon. 
What  next?  Free  them,  and  make  them  politically 
and  socially  our  equals?  My  own  feelings  will 
not  admit  of  this;  and  if  mine  would,  we  well 
know  that  those  of  the  great  mass  of  white  people 
will  not.  [[Whether  this  feeling  accords  with  jus 
tice  and  sound  judgment  is  not  the  sole  question,  if 
indeed  it  is  any  part  of  it.  A  universal  feeling, 
whether  well  or  ill-founded,  cannot  be  safely  disre 
garded.  We  cannot  make  them  equals.J  It  does 
seem  to  me  that  systems  of  gradual  emancipation 
might  be  adopted;  but  for  their  tardiness  in  this  I 
will  not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the 
South. 

;<  When  they  remind  us  of  their  constitutional 
rights,  I  acknowledge  them,  not  grudgingly,  but 
fully  and  fairly;  and  I  would  give  them  any  legis 
lation  for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives  which 
should  not,  in  its  stringency,  be  more  likely  to  carry 
a  free  man  into  slavery  than  our  ordinary  criminal 
laws  are  to  hang  an  innocent  one. 

"  But  all  this,  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no 
more  excuse  for  permitting  slavery  to  go  into  our 
own  free  territory  than  it  would  for  reviving  the 


88  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

African  slave-trade  by  law.  The  law  which  for 
bids  the  bringing  of  slaves  from  Africa,  and  that 
which  has  so  long  forbidden  the  taking  of  them 
to  Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  on  any 
moral  principle;  and  the  repeal  of  the  former 
could  find  quite  as  plausible  excuses  as  that  of  the 
latter." 

I  have  reason  to  know  that  Judge  Douglas 
knows  that  I  said  this.  I  think  he  has  the  answer 
here  to  one  of  the  questions  he  put  to  me.  I  do 
not  mean  to  allow  him  to  catechize  me  unless  he 
pays  back  for  it  in  kind.  I  will  not  answer  ques 
tions  one  after  another,  unless  he  reciprocates;  but 
as  he  has  made  this  inquiry,  and  I  have  answered 
it  before,  he  has  got  it  without  my  getting  any 
thing  in  return.  He  has  got  my  answer  on  the 
fugitive-slave  law. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  don't  want  to  read  at  any 
great  length;  but  this  is  the  true  complexion  of  all 
I  have  ever  said  in  regard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery  and  the  black  race.  This  is  the  whole 
of  it;  and  anything  that  argues  me  into  his  idea 
of  perfect  social  and  political  equality  with  the 
negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic  arrangement 
of  words,  by  which  a  man  can  prove  a  horse-chest 
nut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will  say  here,  while 
upon  this  subject,  that  I  have  no  purpose,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institu- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  89 

tion  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  be 
lieve  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have 
no  inclination  to  do  so.  I  have  no  purpose  to  in 
troduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the 
white  and  the  black  races.  There  is  a  physical 
difference  between  the  two  which,  in  my  judgment, 
will  probably  forever  forbid  their  living  together 
upon  the  footing  of  perfect  equality;  and,  inas 
much  as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there  must' be 
a  difference,  I  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas  am  in 
favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the 
superior  position.  I  have  never  said  anything  to 
the  contrary,  but  I  hold  that,  notwithstanding  all 
this,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the  negro 
is  not  entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumerated 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, — the  right  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  hold 
that  he  is  as  much  entitled  to  these  as  the  white 
man.  I  agree  with  Judge  Douglas  he  is  not  my 
equal  in  many  respects, — certainly  not  in  color, 
perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellectual  endowment. 
But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  the  leave 
of  anybody  else,  which  his  own  hand  earns,  he  is 
my  equal  and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the 
equal  of  every  living  man. 

Now  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more  of 
these  little  follies.  The  Judge  is  wofully  at  fault 
about  his  early  friend  Lincoln  being  a  "  grocery- 
keeper."  I  don't  think  that  it  would  be  a  great 


90  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

sin  if  I  had  been;  but  he  is  mistaken.  Lincoln 
never  kept  a  grocery  anywhere  in  the  world.  It 
is  true  that  Lincoln  did  work  the  latter  part  of 
one  winter  in  a  little  still-house  up  at  the  head  of 
a  hollow.  And  so  I  think  my  friend,  the  Judge, 
is  equally  at  fault  when  he  charges  me  at  the  time 
when  I  was  in  Congress  of  having  opposed  our 
soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War. 
^  The  Judge  did  not  make  his  charge  very  distinctly; 
but  I  tell  you  what  he  can  prove,  by  referring  to 
the  record.  You  remember  I  was  an  Old  Whig; 
and  whenever  the  Democratic  party  tried  to  get 
me  to  vote  that  the  war  had  been  righteously  be 
gun  by  the  President,  I  would  not  do  it.  But 
whenever  they  asked  for  any  money  or  land-war 
rants  or  anything  to  pay  the  soldiers  there,  during 
all  that  time,  I  gave  the  same  vote  that  Judge 
Douglas  did.  You  can  think  as  you  please  as  to 
whether  that  was  consistent.  Such  is  the  truth ; 
and  the  Judge  has  the  right  to  make  all  he  can 
out  of  it.  But  when  he,  by  a  general  charge,  con 
veys  the  idea  that  I  withheld  supplies  from  the 
soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War, 
or  did  anything  else  to  hinder  the  soldiers,  he  is, 
to  say  the  least,  grossly  and  altogether  mistaken, 
as  a  consultation  of  the  records  will  prove  to  him. 

As  I  have  not  used  up  so  much  of  my  time  as 
I  had  supposed,  I  will  dwell  a  little  longer  upon 
one  or  two  of  these  minor  topics  upon  which  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  91 

Judge  has  spoken.  He  has  read  from  my  speech 
in  Springfield  in  which  I  say  that  "  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  Does  the  Judge  say 
it  can  stand?  I  don't  know  whether  he  does  or 
not.  The  Judge  does  not  seem  to  be  attending  to 
me  just  now,  but  I  would  like  to  know  if  it  is  his 
opinion  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  can 
stand.  If  he  does,  then  there  is  a  question  of 
veracity,  not  between  him  and  me,  but  between  the 
Judge  and  an  authority  of  a  somewhat  higher 
character. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  ask  your  attention  to  this 
matter  for  the  purpose  of  saying  something  seri 
ously.  I  know  that  the  Judge  may  readily  enough 
agree  with  me  that  the  maxim  which  was  put  forth 
by  the  Savior  is  true,  but  he  may  allege  that  I 
misapply  it;  and  the  Judge  has  a  right  to  urge  that 
in  my  application  I  do  misapply  it,  and  then  I  have 
a  right  to  show  that  I  do  not  misapply  it.  When 
he  undertakes  to  say  that,  because  I  think  this  na 
tion  so  far  as  the  question  of  slavery  is  concerned 
will  all  become  one  thing  or  all  the  other,  I  am 
in  favor  of  bringing  about  a  dead  uniformity  in 
the  various  States  in  all  their  institutions,  he  argues 
erroneously.  The  great  variety  of  the  local  insti 
tutions  in  the  States,  springing  from  differences  in 
the  soil,  differences  in  the  face  of  the  country,  and 
in  the  climate,  are  bonds  of  union.  They  do  not 
make  "  a  house  divided  against  itself,"  but  they 


92  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

make  a  house  united.  If  they  produce  in  one  sec 
tion  of  the  country  what  is  called  for  by  the  wants 
of  another  section,  and  this  other  section  can  sup 
ply  the  wants  of  the  first,  they  are  not  matters  of 
discord,  but  bonds  of  union, — true  bonds  of  union. 
But  can  this  question  of  slavery  be  considered  as 
among  these  varieties  in  the  institutions  of  the 
country?  I  leave  it  to  you  to  say  whether,  in  the 
history  of  our  government,  this  institution  of  slav 
ery  has  not  always  failed  to  be  a  bond  of  union, 

*  and  on  the  contrary  been  an  apple  of  discord  and 
an  element  of  division  in  the  house.  I  ask  you  to 
consider  whether,  so  long  as  the  moral  constitution 
of  men's  minds  shall  continue  to  be  the  same,  after 
this  generation  and  assemblage  shall  sink  into  the 
grave  and  another  race  shall  arise  with  the  same 
moral  and  intellectual  development  we  have, — 
whether,  if  that  institution  is  standing  in  the  same 
irritating  position  in  which  is  now  is,  it  will  not 
continue  an  element  of  division? 

If  so,  then  I  have  a  right  to  say  that,  in  regard 
to  this  question,  the  Union  is  a  house  divided 
against  itself;  and  when  the  Judge  reminds  me  that 
I  have  often  said  to  him  that  the  institution  of  slav 
ery  has  existed  for  eighty  years  in  some  States,  and 
yet  it  does  not  exist  in  some  others,  I  agree  to  the 
fact,  and  I  account  for  it  by  looking  at  the  posi 
tion  in  which  our  fathers  originally  placed  it, — 

.  restricting  it  from  the  new  Territories  where  it 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  93 

had  not  gone,  and  legislating  to  cut  off  its  source 
by  the  abrogation  of  the  slave  trade,  thus  putting 
the  seal  of  legislation  against  its  spread.  The  pub 
lic  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But  lately,  I  think, 
—and  in  this  I  charge  nothing  on  the  Judge's  mo 
tives, — lately,  I  think  that  he,  and  those  acting 
with  him,  have  placed  that  institution  on  a  new 
basis,  which  looks  to  the  perpetuity  and  nationali- 
nation  of  slavery.  And  while  it  is  placed  upon 
this  new  basis,  I  say  and  I  have  said  that  I  believe 
we  shall  not  have  peace  upon  the  question  until 
the  opponents  of  slavery  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  its  advo 
cates  will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new, 
North  as  well  as  South.  Now  I  believe,  if  we  could 
arrest  the  spread  and  place  it  where  Washington 
and  Jefferson  and  Madison  placed  it,  it  would  be 
in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  and  the  pub 
lic  mind  would,  as  for  eighty  years  past,  believe 
that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
The  crisis  would  be  past,  and  the  institution  might 
be  let  alone  for  a  hundred  years — if  it  should  live 
so  long — in  the  States  where  it  exists,  yet  it  would 
be  going  out  of  existence  in  the  way  best  for  both 
the  black  and  the  white  races. 


94  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

[A  voice:  "  Then  do  you  repudiate  Popular 
Sovereignty?"] 

Well,  then,  let  us  talk  about  popular  sover 
eignty.  What  is  Popular  Sovereignty?  Is  it  the 
right  of  the  people  to  have  slavery  or  not  have  it, 
as  they  see  fit,  in  the  Territories?  I  will  state — 
and  I  have  an  able  man  to  watch  me — my  under 
standing  is  that  Popular  Sovereignty,  as  now  ap 
plied  to  the  question  of  slavery,  does  allow  the 
people  of  a  Territory  to  have  slavery  if  they  want 
to,  but  does  not  allow  them  not  to  have  it  if  they 
do  not  want  it.  I  do  not  mean  that,  if  this  vast 
concourse  of  people  were  in  a  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  any  one  of  them  would  be  obliged 
to  have  a  slave  if  he  did  not  want  one;  but  I  do 
say  that,  as  I  understand  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
if  any  one  man  wants  slaves  all  the  rest  have  no 
way  of  keeping  that  one  man  from  holding  them. 

When  I  made  my  speech  at  Springfield,  of  which 
the  Judge  complains  and  from  which  he  quotes,  I 
really  was  not  thinking  of  the  things  which  he 
ascribes  to  me  at  all.  I  had  no  thought  in  the 
world  that  I  was  doing  anything  to  bring  about  a 
war  between  the  Free  and  Slave  States.  I  had  no 
thought  in  the  world  that  I  was  doing  anything  to 
bring  about  a  political  and  social  equality  of  the 
black  and  white  races.  It  never  occurred  to  me 
that  I  was  doing  anything  or  favoring  anything 
to  reduce  to  a  dead  uniformity  all  the  local  insti- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  95 

tutions  of  the  various  States.  But  I  must  say,  in 
all  fairness  to  him,  if  he  thinks  I  am  doing  some 
thing  which  leads  to  these  bad  results,  it  is  none 
the  better  that  I  did  not  mean  it.  It  is  just  as 
fatal  to  the  country,  if  I  have  any  influence  in 
producing  it,  whether  I  intend  it  or  not.  But  can 
it  be  true  that  placing  this  institution  upon  the 
original  basis — the  basis  upon  which  our  fathers 
placed  it — can  have  any  tendency  to  set  the  North 
ern  and  the  Southern  States  at  war  with  one  an 
other,  or  that  it  can  have  any  tendency  to  make  the 
people  of  Vermont  raise  sugar-cane  because  they 
raise  it  in  Louisiana,  or  that  it  can  compel  the 
people  of  Illinois  to  cut  pine  logs  on  the  Grand 
Prairie,  where  they  will  not  grow,  because  they  cut 
pine  logs  in  Maine,  where  they  do  grow?  The 
Judge  says  this  is  a  new  principle  started  in  regard 
to  this  question.  Does  the  Judge  claim  that  he  is 
working  on  the  plan  of  the  founders  of  the  gov 
ernment?  I  think  he  says  in  some  of  his  speeches 
— indeed,  I  liave  one  here  now — that  he  saw  evi 
dence  of  a  policy  to  allow  slavery  to  be  south  of 
a  certain  line,  while  north  of  it  it  should  be  ex 
cluded;  and  he  saw  an  indisposition  on  the  part 
of  the  country  to  stand  upon  that  policy,  and 
therefore  he  set  about  studying  the  subject  upon 
original  principles,  and  upon  original  principles  he 
got  up  the  Nebraska  bill !  I  am  fighting  it  upon 
these  "  original  principles," — fighting  it  in  the 


96  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

Jeffersonian,     Washingtonian,     and     Madisonian 
fashion. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  wish  you  to  attend  for  a 
little  while  to  one  or  two  other  things  in  that 
Springfield  speech.  My  main  object  was  to  show, 
so  far  as  my  humble  ability  was  capable  of  show 
ing,  to  the  people  of  this  country  what  I  believed 
was  the  truth, — that  there  was  a  tendency,  if  not 
a  conspiracy,  among  those  who  have  engineered 
this  slavery  question  for  the  last  four  or  five  years, 
to  make  slavery  perpetual  and  universal  in  this  na 
tion.  Having  made  that  speech  principally  for 
that  object,  after  arranging  the  evidences  that  I 
thought  tended  to  prove  my  proposition,  I  con 
cluded  with  this  bit  of  comment : 

"  We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  these  exact 
adaptations  are  the  results  of  pre-concert;  but, 
when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  por 
tions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at 
different  times  and  places,  and  by  different 
workmen, — Stephen  [Senator  Douglas],  Franklin 
[President  Pierce],  Roger  [Chief  Justice  Taney], 
and  James  [President  Buchanan],  for  instance, — 
and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined  together,  and 
see  they  exactly  make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a 
mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises  exactly  fitting,  and 
all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different 
pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective  places, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  97 

and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few, — not  omit 
ting  even  the  scaffolding, — or  if  a  single  piece  be 
lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted 
and  prepared  to  yet  bring  such  piece  in, — in  such 
a  case  we  feel  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that 
Stephen,  and  Franklin,  and  Roger,  and  James,  all 
understood  one  another  from  the  beginning,  and 
all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn 
before  the  first  blow  was  struck." 

When  my  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  came  to  Chi 
cago  on  the  Qth  of  July,  this  speech  having  been 
delivered  on  the  i6th  of  June,  he  made  an 
harangue  there  in  which  he  took  hold  of  this  speech 
of  mine,  showing  that  he  had  carefully  read  it; 
and,  while  he  paid  no  attention  to  this  matter  at 
all,  but  complimented  me  as  being  a  "  kind,  ami 
able,  and  intelligent  gentleman,"  notwithstanding 
I  had  said  this,  he  goes  on  and  deduces,  or  draws 
out,  from  my  speech  this  tendency  of  mine  to  set 
the  States  at  war  with  one  another,  to  make  all  the 
institutions  uniform,  and  set  the  niggers  and  white 
people  to  marry  together.  Then,  as  the  Judge  had 
complimented  me  with  these  pleasant  titles,  (I 
must  confess  to  my  weakness)  I  was  a  little 
"  taken  ";  for  it  came  from  a  great  man.  I  was 
not  very  much  accustomed  to  flattery,  and  it  came 
the  sweeter  to  me.  I  was  rather  like  the  Hoosier 
with  the  gingerbread,  when  he  said  he  reckoned  he 


98  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

loved  it  better  than  any  other  man,  and  got  less 
of  it.  As  the  Judge  had  so  flattered  me,  I  could 
not  make  up  my  mind  that  he  meant  to  deal  un 
fairly  with  me.  So  I  went  to  work  to  show  him 
that  he  misunderstood  the  whole  scope  of  my 
speech,  and  that  I  really  never  intended  to  set  the 
people  at  war  with  one  another.  As  an  illustra 
tion,  the  next  time  I  met  him,  which  was  at  Spring 
field,  I  used  this  expression,  that  I  claimed  no  right 
under  the  Constitution,  nor  had  I  any  inclination, 
to  enter  into  the  Slave  States  and  interfere  with 
the  institutions  of  slavery.  He  says  upon  that: 
Lincoln  will  not  enter  into  the  Slave  States,  but 
will  go  to  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  on  this  side,  and 
shoot  over!  He  runs  on,  step  by  step,  in  the 
horse-chestnut  style  of  argument,  until  in  the 
Springfield  speech  he  says,  "  Unless  he  shall  be 
successful  in  firing  his  batteries  until  he  shall  have 
extinguished  slavery  in  all  the  States,  the  Union 
shall  be  dissolved."  Now  I  don't  think  that  was 
exactly  the  way  to  treat  "  a  kind,  amiable,  intel 
ligent  gentleman."  I  know  if  I  had  asked  the 
Judge  to  show  when  or  where  it  was  I  had  said 
that,  if  I  didn't  succeed  in  firing  into  the  Slave 
States  until  slavery  should  be  extinguished,  the 
Union  should  be  dissolved,  he  could  not  have 
shown  it.  I  understand  what  he  would  do.  He 
would  say,  "  I  don't  mean  to  quote  from  you,  but 
this  was  the  result  of  what  you  say."  But  I  have 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  gg 

the  right  to  ask,  and  I  do  ask  now,  Did  you  not 
put  it  in  such  a  form  that  an  ordinary  reader  or  fr 
listener  would  take  it  as  an  expression  from  me? 

In  a  speech  at  Springfield,  on  the  night  of  the 
1 7th,  I  thought  I  might  as  well  attend  to  my  own 
business  a  little;  and  I  recalled  his  attention  as  well 
as  I  could  to  this  charge  of  conspiracy  to  national 
ize  slavery.  I  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that 
he  had  acknowledged  in  my  hearing  twice  that  he 
had  carefully  read  the  speech;  and,  in  the  language 
of  the  lawyers,  as  he  had  twice  read  the  speech 
and  still  had  put  in  no  plea  or  answer,  I  took  a 
default  on  him.  I  insisted  that  I  had  a  right  then 
to  renew  that  charge  of  conspiracy.  Ten  days 
afterwards  I  met  the  Judge  at  Clinton, — that  is  to 
say,  I  was  on  the  ground,  but  not  in  the  discus 
sion, — and  heard  him  make  a  speech.  Then  he 
comes  in  with  his  plea  to  this  charge,  for  the  first 
time;  and  his  plea  when  put  in,  as  well  as  I  can 
recollect  it,  amounted  to  this :  That  he  never  had 
any  talk  with  Judge  Taney  or  the  President  of 
the  United  States  with  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  before  it  was  made;  I  (Lincoln)  ought 
to  know  that  the  man  who  makes  a  charge  without 
knowing  it  to  be  true  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who 
knowingly  tells  a  falsehood;  and,  lastly,  that  he 
would  pronounce  the  whole  thing  a  falsehood;  but 
he  would  make  no  personal  application  of  the 
charge  of  falsehood,  not  because  of  any  regard  for 


ioo  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

the  u  kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman, "  but 
because  of  his  own  personal  self-respect !  I  have 
'understood  since  then  (but  [turning  to  Judge 
Douglas]  will  not  hold  the  Judge  to  it  if  he  is  not 
willing)  that  he  has  broken  through  the  "  self- 
respect,"  and  has  got  to  saying  the  thing  out.  The 
Judge  nods  to  me  that  it  is  so.  It  is  forfunate  for 
me  that  I  can  keep  as  good-humored  as  I  do,  when 
the  Judge  acknowledges  that  he  has  been  trying 
to  make  a  question  of  veracity  with  me.  I  know 
the  Judge  is  a  great  man,  while  I  am  only  a  small 
man;  but  I  feel  that  I  have  got  him.  I  demur  to 
that  plea.  I  waive  all  objections  that  it  was  not 
filed  till  after  default  was  taken,  and  demur  to  it 
upon  the  merits.  What  if  Judge  Douglas  never 
did  talk  with  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  the  Presi 
dent  before  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  made : 
does  it  follow  that  he  could  not  have  had  as  per 
fect  an  understanding  without  talking  as  with  it? 
I  am  not  disposed  to  stand  upon  my  legal  advan 
tage.  I  am  disposed  to  take  his  denial  as  being 
like  an  answer  in  chancery,  that  he  neither  had  any 
knowledge,  information,  nor  belief  in  the  exist 
ence  of  such  a  conspiracy.  I  am  disposed  to  take 
his  answer  as  being  as  broad  as  though  he  had  put 
it  in  these  words.  And  now,  I  ask,  even  if  he  had 
done  so,  have  not  I  a  right  to  prove  it  on  him,  and 
to  offer  the  evidence  of  more  than  two  witnesses, 
by  whom  to  prove  it;  and  if  the  evidence  proves 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  ibi 

the  existence  of  the  conspiracy,  does  his  broad  an 
swer  denying  all  knowledge,  information,  or  belief, 
disturb  the  fact?  It  can  only  show  that  he  was 
used  by  conspirators,  and  was  not  a  leader  of  them. 
Now,  in  regard  to  his  reminding  me  of  the 
moral  rule  that  persons  who  tell  what  they  do  not 
know  to  be  true,  falsify  as  much  as  those  who 
knowingly  tell  falsehoods.  I  remember  the  rule, 
and  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  what  I  have 
read  to  you,  I  do  not  say  that  I  know  such  a  con 
spiracy  to  exist.  To  that  I  reply,  I  believe  it.  If 
the  Judge  says  that  I  do  not  believe  it,  then  he 
says  what  he  does  not  know,  and  falls  within  his 
own  rule  that  he  who  asserts  a  thing  which  he 
does  not  know  to  be  true,  falsifies  as  much  as  he 
who  knowingly  tells  a  falsehood.  I  want  to  call 
your  attention  to  a  little  discussion  on  that  branch 
of  the  case,  and  the  evidence  which  brought  my 
mind  to  the  conclusion  which  I  expressed  as  my 
belief.  If,  in  arraying  that  evidence,  I  had  stated 
anything  which  was  false  or  erroneous,  it  needed 
but  that  Judge  Douglas  should  point  it  out,  and 
I  would  have  taken  it  back  with  all  the  kindness 
in  the  world.  I  do  not  deal  in  that  way.  If  I  have 
brought  forward  anything  not  a  fact,  if  he  will 
point  it  out,  it  will  not  even  ruffle  me  to  take  it 
back.  But  if  he  will  not  point  out  anything  er 
roneous  in  the  evidence,  is  it  not  rather  for  him 
to  show  by  a  comparison  of  the  evidence  that  I 


102  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

have  reasoned  falsely,  than  to  call  the  "  kind,  ami 
able,  intelligent  gentleman  "  a  liar?  If  I  have 
reasoned  to  a  false  conclusion,  it  is  the  vocation 
of  an  able  debater  to  show  by  argument  that  I  have 
wandered  to  an  erroneous  conclusion. 

I  want  to  ask  your  attention  to  a  portion  of  the 
Nebraska  bill  which  Judge  Douglas  has  quoted : 
"  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  Act 
not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State, 
nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  There 
upon  Judge  Douglas  and  others  began  to  argue  in 
favor  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty," — the  right  of  the 
people  to  have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them,  and  to 
exclude  slavery  if  they  did  not  want  them.  "  But," 
said,  in  substance,  a  Senator  from  Ohio  (Mr. 
Chase,  I  believe),  "  we  more  than  suspect  that 
you  do  not  mean  to  allow  the  people  to  exclude 
slavery  if  they  wish  to;  and  if  you  do  mean  it, 
accept  an  amendment  which  I  propose  expressly 
authorizing  the  people  to  exclude  slavery."  I  be 
lieve  I  have  the  amendment  here  before  me  which 
was  offered,  and  under  which  the  people  of  the 
Territory,  through  their  proper  representatives, 
might,  if  they  saw  fit,  prohibit  the  existence  of  slav 
ery  therein.  And  now  I  state  it  as  a  fact,  to  be 
taken  back  if  there  is  any  mistake  about  it,  that 


'ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  103 

Judge  Douglas  and  those  acting  with  him  voted 
that  amendment  down.  I  now  think  that  those 
men  who  voted  it  down  had  a  real  reason  for  do 
ing  so.  They  know  what  that  reason  was.  It 
looks  to  us,  since  we  have  seen  the  Dred  Scott  de 
cision  pronounced,  holding  that  u  under  the  Con 
stitution  "  the  people  cannot  exclude  slavery — I  say 
it  looks  to  outsiders,  poor,  simple,  "  amiable,  intel 
ligent  gentlemen,"  as  though  the  niche  was  left  as 
a  place  to  put  that  Dred  Scott  decision  in, — a  niche 
which  would  have  been  spoiled  by  adopting  the 
amendment.  And  now  I  say  again,  if  this  was  not 
the  reason,  it  will  avail  the  judge  much  more  to 
calmly  and  good-humoredly  point  out  to  these  peo 
ple  what  that  other  reason  was  for  voting  the 
amendment  down  than  swelling  himself  up  to  vo 
ciferate  that  he  may  be  provoked  to  call  somebody 
a  liar. 

Again,  there  is  in  that  same  quotation  from 
the  Nebraska  bill  this  clause:  "  It  being  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  this  bill  not  to  legislate  slav 
ery  into  any  Territory  or  State."  I  have  always 
been  puzzled  to  know  what  business  the  word 
"  State  "  had  in  that  connection.  Judge  Douglas 
knows.  He  put  it  there.  He  knows  what  he  put 
it  there  for.  We  outsiders  cannot  say  what  he  put 
it  there  for.  The  law  they  were  passing  was  not 
about  States,  and  was  not  making  provision  for 
States.  What  was  it  placed  there  for?  After  see- 


104  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

ing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  holds  that  the 
people  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  a  Territory,  if 
another  Dred  Scott  decision  shall  come,  holding 
that  they  cannot  exclude  it  from  a  State,  we  shall 
discover  that  when  the  word  was  originally  put 
there  it  was  in  view  of  something  which  was  to 
come  in  due  time;  we  shall  see  that  it  was  the 
other  half  of  something.  I  now  say  again,  if  there 
is  any  different  reason  for  putting  it  there,  Judge 
Douglas,  in  a  good-humored  way,  without  calling 
anybody  a  liar,  can  tell  what  the  reason  was. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  have  but  one  branch  of  the 
subject,  in  the  little  time  I  have  left,  to  which  to 
call  your  attention;  and,  as  I  shall  come  to  a  close 
at  the  end  of  that  branch,  it  is  probable  that  I  shall 
not  occupy  quite  all  the  time  allotted  to  me.  Al 
though  on  these  questions  I  would  like  to  talk 
twice  as  long  as  I  have,  I  could  not  enter  upon 
another  head  and  discuss  it  properly  without  run 
ning  over  my  time.  I  ask  the  attention  of  the 
people  here  assembled  and  elsewhere  to  the  course 
that  Judge  Douglas  is  pursuing  every  day  as  bear 
ing  upon  this  question  of  making  slavery  national. 
Not  going  back  to  the  records,  but  taking  the 
speeches  he  makes,  the  speeches  he  made  yesterday 
and  day  before,  and  makes  constantly  all  over  the 
country, — I  ask  your  attention  to  them.  In  the 
first  place,  what  is  necessary  to  make  the  institution 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  105 

national  ?  Not  war.  There  is  no  danger  that  the 
people  of  Kentucky  will  shoulder  their  muskets, 
and,  with  a  young  nigger  stuck  on  every  bayonet, 
march  into  Illinois  and  force  them  upon  us.  There 
is  no  danger  of  our  going  over  there  and  making 
war  upon  them.  Then  what  is  necessary  for  the 
nationalization  of  slavery?  It  is  simply  the  next 
Dred  Scott  decision.  It  is  merely  for  the  Supreme 
Court  to  decide  that  no  State  under  the  Constitu 
tion  can  exclude  it,  just  as  they  have  already  de 
cided  that  under  the  Constitution  neither  Congress 
nor  the  Territorial  legislature  can  do  it.  When 
that  is  decided  and  acquiesced  in,  the  whole  thing 
is  done.  This  being  true,  and  this  being  the  way, 
as  I  think,  that  slavery  is  to  be  made  national,  let 
us  consider  what  Judge  Douglas  is  doing  every  day 
to  that  end.  In  the  first  place,  let  us  see  what 
influence  he  is  exerting  on  public  sentiment.  In 
this  and  like  communities,  public  sentiment  is 
everything.  With  public  sentiment,  nothing  can 
fail:  without  it,  nothing  can  succeed.  Conse 
quently,  he  who  molds  public  sentiment  goes  deeper 
than  he  who  enacts  statutes  or  pronounces  decisions. 
He  makes  statutes  and  decisions  possible  or  impos 
sible  to  be  executed.  This  must  be  borne  in  mind, 
as  also  the  additional  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  is 
a  man  of  vast  influence,  so  great  that  it  is  enough 
for  many  men  to  profess  to  believe  anything  when 
they  once  find  out  that  Judge  Douglas  professes  to 


106  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

believe  it.  Consider  also  the  attitude  he  occupies 
at  the  head  of  a  large  party, — a  party  which  he 
claims  has  a  majority  of  all  the  voters  in  the 
country. 

This  man  sticks  to  a  decision  which  forbids  the 
people  of  a  Territory  to  exclude  slavery,  and  he 
does  so  not  because  he  says  it  is  right  in  itself, — 
he  does  not  give  any  opinion  on  that, — but  because 
it  has  been  decided  by  the  court;  and,  being  decided 
by  the  court,  he  is,  and  you  are,  bound  to  take  it 
in  your  political  action  as  law, — not  that  he  judges 
at  all  of  its  merits,  but  because  a  decision  of  the 
court  is  to  him  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  He 
places  it  on  that  ground  alone,  and  you  will  bear 
in  mind  that  thus  committing  himself  unreservedly 
to  this  decision  commits  him  to  the  next  one  just 
as  firmly  as  to  this.  He  did  not  commit  himself 
on  account  of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  decision, 
but  it  is  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  The  next 
decision,  as  much  as  this,  will  be  a  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord."  There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or 
turn  him  away  from  this  decision.  It  is  nothing 
that  I  point  out  to  him  that  his  great  prototype, 
General  Jackson,  did  not  believe  in  the  binding 
force  of  decisions.  It  is  nothing  to  him  that  Jeffer 
son  did  not  so  believe.  I  have  said  that  I  have 
often  heard  him  approve  of  Jackson's  course  in 
disregarding  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
pronouncing  a  national  bank  constitutional.  He 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  107 

says  I  did  not  hear  him  say  so.  He  denies  the 
accuracy  of  my  recollection.  I  say  he  ought  to 
know  better  than  I;  but  I  will  make  no  question 
about  this  thing,  though  it  still  seems  to  me  that 
I  heard  him  say  it  twenty  times.  I  will  tell  him, 
though,  that  he  now  claims  to  stand  on  the  Cin 
cinnati  platform,  which  affirms  that  Congress  can 
not  charter  a  national  bank,  in  the  teeth  of  that 
old  standing  decision  that  Congress  can  charter  a 
bank.  And  I  remind  him  of  another  piece  of  his 
tory  on  the  question  of  respect  for  judicial  deci 
sions,  and  it  is  a  piece  of  Illinois  history,  belong 
ing  to  a  time  when  a  large  party  to  which  Judge 
Douglas  belonged  were  displeased  with  a  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  because  they  had 
decided  that  a  Governor  could  not  remove  a  Sec 
retary  of  State.  You  will  find  the  whole  story  in 
Ford's  History  of  Illinois,  and  I  know  that  Judge 
Douglas  will  not  deny  that  he  was  then  in  favor 
of  overslaughing  that  decision  by  the  mode  of  add 
ing  five  new  judges,  so  as  to  vote  down  the  four 
old  ones.  Not  only  so,  but  it  ended  in  the  Judge's 
sitting  down  on  the  very  bench  as  one  of  the  five 
new  Judges  to  break  down  the  four  old  ones.  It 
was  in  this  way  precisely  that  he  got  his  title  of 
judge.  Now,  when  the  Judge  tells  me  that  men 
appointed  conditionally  to  sit  as  members  of  a 
court  will  have  to  be  catechised  beforehand  upon 
some  subject,  I  say,  "  You  know,  Judge;  you  have 


io8  NOTED  SPEECHES  OF 

tried  it."  When  he  says  a  court  of  this  kind  will 
lose  the  confidence  of  all  men,  will  be  prostituted 
and  disgraced  by  such  a  proceeding,  I  say,  u  You 
know  best,  Judge;  you  have  been  through  the 
mill." 

But  I  cannot  shake  Judge  Douglas's  teeth  loose 
from  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Like  some  obsti 
nate  animal  (I  mean  no  disrespect)  that  will  hang 
on  when  he  has  once  got  his  teeth  fixed,  you  may 
cut  off  a  leg  or  you  may  tear  away  an  arm,  still 
he  will  not  relax  his  hold.  And  so  I  may  point 
out  to  the  Judge,  and  say  that  he  is  bespattered  all 
over,  from  the  beginning  of  his  political  life  to 
the  present  time,  with  attacks  upon  judicial  deci 
sions;  I  may  cut  off  limb  after  limb  of  his  public 
record,  and  strive  to  wrench  from  him  a  single 
dictum  of  the  court, — yet  I  cannot  divert  him  from 
it.  He  hangs  to  the  last  to  the  Dred  Scott  deci 
sion.  These  things  show  there  is  a  purpose  strong 
as  death  and  eternity  for  which  he  adheres  to  this 
decision,  and  for  which  he  will  adhere  to  all  other 
decisions  of  the  same  court.  [A  voice:  "  Give  us 
something  besides  Dred  Scott."]  Yes;  no  doubt 
you  want  to  hear  something  that  don't  hurt. 

Now,  having  spoken  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
one  more  word  and  I  am  done.  Henry  Clay,  my 
beau-ideal  of  a  statesman,  the  man  for  whom  I 
fought  all  my  humble  life, — Henry  Clay  once  said 
of  a  class  of  men  who  would  repress  all  tendencies 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  109 

to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation,  that  they 
must,  if  they  would  do  this,  go  back  to  the  era  of 
our  independence  and  muzzle  the  cannon  which 
thunders  its  annual  joyous  return;  they  must  blow 
out  the  moral  lights  around  us;  they  must  pene 
trate  the  human  soul  and  eradicate  there  the  love 
of  liberty;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  could  they 
perpetuate  slavery  in  this  country!  To  my  think 
ing,  Judge  Douglas  is,  by  his  example  and  vast 
influence,  doing  that  very  thing  in  this  community 
when  he  says  that  the  negro  has  nothing  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Henry  Clay  plainly 
understood  the  contrary.  Judge  Douglas  is  going 
back  to  the  era  of  our  Revolution,  and  to  the 
extent  of  his  ability  muzzling  the  cannon  which 
thunders  its  annual  joyous  return.  When  he  in 
vites  any  people,  willing  to  have  slavery,  to  estab 
lish  it,  he  is  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around 
us.  When  he  says  he  "  cares  not  whether  slav 
ery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up," — that  it  is  a 
sacred  right  of  self-government, — he  is,  in  my 
judgment,  penetrating  the  human  soul,  and  eradi 
cating  the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty 
in  this  American  people.  And  now  I  will  only 
say  that  when,  by  all  these  means  and  appliances, 
Judge  Douglas  shall  succeed  in  bringing  public 
sentiment  to  an  exact  accordance  with  his  own 
views, — when  these  vast  assemblages  shall  echo 
back  all  these  sentiments, — when  they  shall  come 


no  NOTED  SPEECHES 

to  repeat  his  views  and  to  avow  his  principles,  and 
to  say  all  that  he  says  on  these  mighty  questions, — 
then  it  needs  only  the  formality  of  the  second  Dred 
Scott  decision,  which  he  indorses  in  advance,  to 
make  slavery  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as 
well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  i     dL 


N0\i  2b  -5b  -3  PM 

LOAN  DEPT. 


JflN  2  5  1966  _a 


J 


399188 


TNIVHRSITY  Ofc  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


